Puss In Boots

[3.5 stars] [IMDB Link]

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This was nominated for Best Animated Feature Oscar, but lost to Rango. I don't disagree with that choice.

It's set in the Shrek universe, where fairy-tale characters walk around in vaguely medieval times. Puss (voiced by Antonio Banderas) finds himself at odds with an old childhood friend, Humpty Dumpty (Zach Galifianakis) who's in pursuit of some magic beans, by which he aims to filch a gold-egg-laying goose… you remember how that goes. Puss is intrigued by his female cat-burglar counterpart, Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek!)

It's all pretty silly, and (for me) contained some amusement. If I were in a slightly worse mood, I'd take a hard, sour look at the folks trying to squeeze out a few more bucks from the Shrek franchise. But I'm not. And Puss does utter one of my favorite movie lines of all time: "Fear me… if you dare!" That never gets old.

The IMDB raters gave this a 6.7 score, under Shrek (7.9) and Shrek 2 (7.3), but better than Shrek 3 (6.0) or Shrek 4 (6.5). That sounds about right.


Last Modified 2024-01-28 7:59 AM EDT