Did this movie even happen? Or was it a delirious, hallucinogenic fever dream? It's hard to tell the difference sometimes. Puss in Boots is sweetness personified, but it's so abrasively shoddy and weird that, watching it, it's easy to worry that you're lapsing out of consciousness and sobriety, much like the superimposed shapeshifting ogre and cat who flicker in front of our eyes like oh so many acid flashbacks.
The film is kind of winningly adorable - but in the same way that any train wreck would be adorable if hundreds of kittens sauntered out of the derailed caboose. It's quaintly antiquated, insofar as no self-respecting recent release, even straight-to-DVD ones, would produce a finished product passing itself as a film so wooden, clumsy, and cheap looking (the community centre called - they'd like their cardboard sets and discount Halloween store costumes back, please and thank you. Okay, that was mean. See?! This movie is too cute to properly mock!). Everything is so gloriously stiff that it recalls a Coen Brothers parody, yet its bare-faced earnest wholesomeness grants it a transcendent level of camp hilarity. We can forgive the lurching storyline due to the children's source material. But the snoozy pace, stretching out and plodding along between Puss' machinations to elevate his master from lowly farm hand to sleight-of-hand royalty, is more bedtime story than nursery rhyme.
The musical numbers are so painfully bland and still, that I, at one point, started counting the threads on my couch as I telepathically implored the characters to stop, so I could stop nervously cringe-laughing at them. Meanwhile, the cast performing them - so amateurish one practically wants to hand out participation medals - over or under-act with the wanton inconsistency of a grade school pantomime. Jason Connery (yes, son of THAT Connery) in particular is so outrageously comatose that he practically sets a new low of what has been recorded constituting a performance - toddlers reading story books out low would demonstrate more inflection.
So why the three stars? Three guesses (and the first two don't count). Christopher Walken. He's iconic in the industry for his unique ability to be unbelievably good in unbelievably bad work, and he's never put his talents to such use as he does here. His flamboyant, gallant charisma and flawless song and dance skills bring effervescent life to literature's most famous trickster cat, while his uniquely syncopated delivery makes every line he speaks garrulously hilarious (whether it's always intentional is up for discussion). Even his springy, fidgety physicality uncannily embodies feline twitchiness. Cheerily oblivious to the disaster he's surrounded by, he's clearly having such a ball that it's hard not to share in his fun, and it's solely because of him that the film deserves even a whisper of recognition henceforth.
Puss in Boots is inarguably awful, but it's so gosh-darn likable that taking pot shots at it is the guiltiest kind of derision. Walken works his Walken magic like never before, bounding around in a pirate hat and capturing our hearts. His delightful weirdness is what helps transform this cheap mess into the surreal, camp masterpiece it was destined to be. Still, even the youngest, most forgiving of audiences are likely to dismiss Puss in Boots as distressingly boring, weird, hokey trash. Mee-ouch.
-3/10
The film is kind of winningly adorable - but in the same way that any train wreck would be adorable if hundreds of kittens sauntered out of the derailed caboose. It's quaintly antiquated, insofar as no self-respecting recent release, even straight-to-DVD ones, would produce a finished product passing itself as a film so wooden, clumsy, and cheap looking (the community centre called - they'd like their cardboard sets and discount Halloween store costumes back, please and thank you. Okay, that was mean. See?! This movie is too cute to properly mock!). Everything is so gloriously stiff that it recalls a Coen Brothers parody, yet its bare-faced earnest wholesomeness grants it a transcendent level of camp hilarity. We can forgive the lurching storyline due to the children's source material. But the snoozy pace, stretching out and plodding along between Puss' machinations to elevate his master from lowly farm hand to sleight-of-hand royalty, is more bedtime story than nursery rhyme.
The musical numbers are so painfully bland and still, that I, at one point, started counting the threads on my couch as I telepathically implored the characters to stop, so I could stop nervously cringe-laughing at them. Meanwhile, the cast performing them - so amateurish one practically wants to hand out participation medals - over or under-act with the wanton inconsistency of a grade school pantomime. Jason Connery (yes, son of THAT Connery) in particular is so outrageously comatose that he practically sets a new low of what has been recorded constituting a performance - toddlers reading story books out low would demonstrate more inflection.
So why the three stars? Three guesses (and the first two don't count). Christopher Walken. He's iconic in the industry for his unique ability to be unbelievably good in unbelievably bad work, and he's never put his talents to such use as he does here. His flamboyant, gallant charisma and flawless song and dance skills bring effervescent life to literature's most famous trickster cat, while his uniquely syncopated delivery makes every line he speaks garrulously hilarious (whether it's always intentional is up for discussion). Even his springy, fidgety physicality uncannily embodies feline twitchiness. Cheerily oblivious to the disaster he's surrounded by, he's clearly having such a ball that it's hard not to share in his fun, and it's solely because of him that the film deserves even a whisper of recognition henceforth.
Puss in Boots is inarguably awful, but it's so gosh-darn likable that taking pot shots at it is the guiltiest kind of derision. Walken works his Walken magic like never before, bounding around in a pirate hat and capturing our hearts. His delightful weirdness is what helps transform this cheap mess into the surreal, camp masterpiece it was destined to be. Still, even the youngest, most forgiving of audiences are likely to dismiss Puss in Boots as distressingly boring, weird, hokey trash. Mee-ouch.
-3/10