The DVD, Blu Ray, and TVD releases for February 21, 2012

PUSS IN BOOTS

*** (out of ****)

Television series aren’t going to be perfect every episode. With TV, we watch a bad eppy, we shrug it off, and we wait for next week. Movie franchises aren’t so fortunate. The first Shrek was decent enough, but I was all set after Shrek 2. Actually, it seemed like they were all set. They had already run out of fresh ideas. This, of course, wasn’t going to keep them from making movies, but it was certainly going to keep me from watching them. And I never really felt like I was missing a large part of the zeitgeist (the reason I’ve suffered through two different Twilight movies). It’s not like I was missing a ton of water cooler moments because I missed Shrek Forever After. So when one of the Shrek supporting characters is chosen, seemingly at random, to headline his own film, I treated it like it was one of those Ice Age movies, in that my entire relationship would be screaming “WHO GIVES A SHIT?” while I walk past the poster one time.

Sometimes life deals you a hand you didn’t expect. Sometimes your wife dies from falling into a septic tank. Sometimes you lose an arm in an absurd blowtorch accident. Sometimes you end up watching Puss in Boots. You just never know what’s going to happen. And sometimes…just sometimes…you might even end up enjoying yourself a little bit.

Puss in Boots is pretty straight-forward in its story telling: Puss goes looking for adventure, Puss finds an adventure, Puss goes on an adventure. In the meantime, he comes up against foes, each one thinking they can lick Puss. There’s a pig who even thinks that he looks delicious, and he tries to eat Puss. But, just as we would expect, Puss proves to be elusive, and no one can get a finger on Puss. Not even the rain can slow him down, as a wet Puss is the hardest kind of Puss to find. I’ve never even seen one.

A lot of the humor, at least in the beginning, comes from the fact that although Puss is an action hero, he is also a cat. This gives us gags like him busting into a dirty saloon just like a badass cowboy, but ordering milk from the bar, and then lapping it out of the shot glass, something that I assume cats do. Mercifully, though, Puss in Boots shies away from the non-stop assault of unfunny pop culture references that the Shrek series and, in turn, most Dreamworks animated franchises, became known for. Aside from one really lame line that rehashes the first two rules of Fight Club, I don’t think Puss in Boots has any blatant film or television references. This, mixed with the fact that the “hit in the groin” jokes are kept to a minimum, is refreshing for any movie, much less a Shrek one.

There’s not a lot here that’s going to change the world. Its Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature is as much a comment on how much 2011’s Pixar movie sucked than it is how good Puss in Boots is.  When it’s time for a laugh, it gives you one. When there hasn’t been an action scene in a while, one magically appears. There just isn’t enough to the main character to allow him to carry a great movie, and there isn’t enough going on around him to help him out. The one thing Puss in Boots has going for it in the “great” category is a villain, in Zach Galifianakis’ Humpty Dumpty, which is a spoiler only if you’re totally blind to the most blatant of foreshadowing and do not understand character development at all.

Galifianakis, who typically walks a fine line between hilariously odd and annoyingly odd, depending on the project, kills it here. It helps to have a character who is much more complex and engaging than our protagonist. Once the story finally starts to kick in, we’re swept away to a flashback of how Puss and Humpty became friends that goes on for almost twenty minutes. It seems oddly placed, but was my favorite part of the movie, just because it was focused, and gave us an ample amount of Humpty.

Puss in Boots isn’t in the same ballpark of the best Pixar gives us, but it was never going to be. Fuck, it probably never wanted to be. It does something else than Pixar. What it lacks in heart and tears it tries to cover up with quick action and jokes. Does that make it as good as Up or Finding Nemo, just in a different way? Not even close. Is it fun anyway? Mostly. And the good in Puss in Boots equals the mediocre, and combined they more than outweigh the bad.

-Ryan Haley

 

MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE

Check out this week’s PopFilter podcast to see what the friends thought of Martha Marcy May Marlene!

https://popfilter.co/2012/02/popfilter-podcast-29/

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