Chris Miller (2011)
DreamWorks gives Puss in Boots – voiced by Antonio Banderas and one of the most successful characters in the Shrek series – his own starring vehicle. To be honest, seeing Banderas and Salma Hayek and a couple of clips from Puss in Boots on The Graham Norton Show was more fun than the film itself. The Odeon website warns of ‘mild comic fight scenes and innuendo’ but the fight scenes weren’t mild enough for me: I’m not sure why I keep going to new animated films expecting anything other than aggressive fireworks every few minutes. I guess this one was a particular disappointment because I wanted more comedy deriving both from observation of cat characteristics and movement and from imposing human attitudes and behaviour on the eponymous hero and his mildly femme fatale-ish girlfriend Kitty Softpaws (Hayek). There is some – and from the various feline extras (one of the best bits, virtually part of the closing credits, has them chasing a spot of light) – but not enough.
Puss in Boots plays on Banderas’s Zorro persona and the plot weaves in a variety of fairytale and nursery rhyme characters – Humpty Dumpty, Jack and Jill, Mother Goose, Little Boy Blue etc. Some of the roles they’re given here violate one’s idea of their essential nature: Jack and Jill are the baddies and the climax of the film involves the threat of a gigantic Mother Goose wrecking the Mexican (?) town where the story is mostly set. The bits when characters get emotionally serious – there are several – are as dreary as they usually are in animated features. Still, Puss is a very engaging physical creation (except at the occasional moments when his eyes grow huge) and Banderas interprets him with matching charm and wit. I also liked the marriage of facial and vocal expression between Humpty Dumpty and Zach Galifianakis, who speaks his lines. Jack and Jill are voiced by Billy Bob Thornton and Amy Sedaris respectively and Guillermo del Toro, who also executive produced, does the chief of police. They’re all fine but the voices aren’t a patch on, say, those in Fantastic Mr Fox. There’s an extremely agreeable Hispanic score by Henry Jackman.
21 December 2011
