Puss in Boots
Last year, the “Shrek” franchise ran out of creative steam after years of sequels that paled in comparison to the superb, 2001 original. This year, Dreamworks decided to spin-off one of the main supporting characters of that franchise, Antonio Banderas’s swashbuckling kitty, and give him his own movie. The result is one of the studio’s strongest efforts, recapturing much of the fairy tale adventure of the original “Shrek,” as well as some of that film’s subversive wit. It still isn’t top-tier Dreamworks (see “How to Train Your Dragon,” “Shrek,” and “Kung Fu Panda”), but it’s got enough energy and wry humor to keep people entertained; cat lovers, in particular, will probably get the most out of the film.
With Banderas in the title role, comparisons to his “Zorro” films are inevitable, but that was no doubt part of why Dreamworks hired him for the role to begin with. But Zorro isn’t the only outlaw that comes to mind in director Chris Miller’s delightful, beautiful animated adventure; Robin Hood also seems like he’s had an influence on Puss, especially when he reunites with an old friend, Humpty Dumpty (Zach Galifianakis), to steal some magic beans from Jack and Jill that will blossom into a beanstalk leading to untold riches in the form of the goose that laid the golden egg. Together with another feline thief, Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek), the trio gets in a little over their heads when an unseen terror is unleashed on the land after their plunder.
As with this year’s best animated film, “Rango,” “Puss in Boots” spends a lot of time deconstructing the iconography of the swashbuckler genre, as well as including a lot of the Western and it’s traditions of outlaws and bad eggs (literally, in this case), from the characterizations to the images to the music by Henry Jackman (who’s had a great year between this, “X-Men: First Class,” and “Winnie the Pooh”). Still, it’s Banderas’s show, and sure, he’s got a great cast around him, but he claws into this material like he was chasing after a ball of yarn. Well played, Puss. Well played.
