Puss In Boots

Year: 2011
Director: Chris Miller
Voice cast: Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Zach Galifianakis


Plot: Shrek's feline friend Puss in Boots finally gets his own adventure, where he teams up with female cat Kitty Soft Paws and former best friend Humpty Dumpty to steal the famed magic beans on a quest for the giant castle in the clouds.


Review: Puss In Boots is easily one of the best things about the Shrek movies. Whenever Shrek stopped being funny, Puss would steal the limelight. Antonio Banderas' low voice is just perfect, especially with his Spanish accent, giving the cat a sexy personality.

In this film, Puss runs into his former best pal Humpty Dumpty, who offers him a chance to redeem himself after their last encounter went south. With a potential love interest in Kitty Soft Paws, who is every bit as skilled as Puss is, they set off to find the magic beans (made famous by Jack from the Beanstalk tale) which is currently in the possession of Jack & Jill, a Bonnie and Clyde type of couple. From there, they head to the giant castle in the clouds, to find the goose that lays golden eggs.

Director Chris Miller wisely puts in a lot of action sequences to keep things moving briskly. Puss, Humpty and Kitty get themselves into a lot of trouble, which is usually followed by an escape sequence of sorts. The scene where they battle Jack & Jill while riding on dueling horse carriages is exhilarating, followed by an elaborate escape sequence from the giant castle. Kudos to the animation peeps for creating such marvelous scenes.

There's also some nice comedy and well written drama put in, with Puss revealing how his friendship with Humpty went bad, and you know this will come into play before the film is over. As Puss, Banderas is excellent, he evokes the right kind of emotion every time he's on screen. The same can't be said though for Humpty, as he starts to get on your nerves by the time the film hits the halfway mark. A talking egg can only get you so far, even if he is voiced by Zach Galifianakis.

Another thing I wasn't cool with is the number of dance sequences. The first one was awesome actually, especially with the way it was set up. But by the time they got to the last one at the film's closing, I had enough. I mean, it's just one too many, even if looks good.

It's nice family entertainment, even if you have never seen the Shrek films. Good to finally have a Puss film with no sign of the green ogre. (3.5/5)