#puss in boots review

[thethirdbill]

I finally saw Puss in Boots 2011 AFTER Puss in Boots The Last Wish! I hope you enjoy my thoughts if you check out the video!

[zel-shadedreviews]

So, this was meant to be a completely new take on Puss, where it doesn’t go down the original story route with him against a shape-shifting ogre; originally, Puss started off as an orphan, living alongside the sentient egg, Humpty Dumpty, before he’s tricked into taking part of a bank robbery, tarnishing his name. Looking to finally seek out a way to clear the damage, Puss comes across the magic beans of well-known thieves, Jack and Jill, before bumping into the literal cat burglar, Kitty Softpaws. It’s not long until Puss reunites with his former best friend, Humpty, where the three plot a trip to grow a beanstalk and take the Giant’s golden egg in order to save the town’s poverty and reclaim their legacy.

I understood that this was intended to be a spin-off with an entirely fresh take on the character, where we see another side to the Shrek universe, taking place in a Spanish setting instead. To match with the character’s Zorro background, the movie borrowed elements from spaghetti westerns down to the creative angles delivering various action-packed shots. While this was a a solid attempt at replicating the the Wild West genre, the one disappointing aspect was how it was more focused on telling a story of the fairytale, Jack and the Beanstalk, rather than satirise it. There was a thrilling climax involving a giant goose, which is something I would expect in a spin-off of the Shrek franchise, but we had to sit through a plot more so telling the backstory of Puss letting his guard down to people who hurt him in the past.

Even more so, this movie relies heavily on the last minute villain reveal, further drowned out with how the one in question was always hiding in the background, awaiting the hero’s presence. While I liked the concept of how the villain had a presence in the hero’s journey, the execution was predictable to begin with, before leaving a rather sour taste afterwards.

Based on the classic films set in the Wild West, we are gifted with an interesting framing style with the camera moving around to emphasise the wider angles of Puss riding across the sunset. This came around the same year as Rango, both elaborating on the variety of angles across the sceneries and characters racing in the foreground. Mentioning the action sequences, they brought back the fun creativity one could find a western flick, particularly the cart chase across the cliffs and the escape from the castle in the clouds. Returning to the villain’s reveal, the way by how he was planning in the background transitioned from a wide shot into a close-up. At first, the setting was rather boring with a basic early-20th century Spanish village, before we’re rewarded with a greater scope with the giant’s rundown castle and the emphasis on the beanstalk. This display isn’t as creative or eye-catching as Rango, but the dedication was there, where it can impress people who were looking for an intriguing manoeuvre.

Before he became a hitman, Puss stands as an outlaw who’s attempting to clear his own name, before being rolled into meeting a new ally and an old enemy. While he doesn’t bare as much wit from his debut in Shrek 2, this prequel was geared to be the very beginning point so it made sense for him to learn how to burgle the hard way. The writers knew how to show off his comedic side by showing more to his feline instincts.

As for the other characters, they’re mostly okay and serve the story: Kitty Softpaws, voiced by Salma Hayek, acts as the cat burglar to be a foil for Puss at first, assisting him later on with his quest, while containing a pointless backstory of her declawing fate; there’s Jack and Jill as the enlarged husband-and-wife duo who pose threat, mounting wild boars; the captain of the guard who’s solely been after Puss all these years, obviously sticking to his job and previous grievances; at one point near the third act, a character whose tied to a specific fairy tale nakes his mark to warn Puss of Humpty’s larger plan; there’s also Imelda the orphanage owner who adopted Puss, becoming an important figure for Puss near the end, where she begs for him to stop running in order to save his skin.

The only character that stands out is none other but Humpty Dumpty, a sentient egg and Puss’ former best friend who betrayed him in the past. While reuniting with his childhood friend, Humpty allowed bygones to be bygones, only to allow his true colours to be revealed by the third act, staging a whole vengeful scheme against his sworn brother and even the whole town. With Humpty’s case, he’s fully in the wrong to backstab someone who previously left him to the wolves after a failed heist in which he lied about; with a plan like this, you’d expect him to be a type you’ll love to hate, but then Puss apologises for leaving him behind, as if this was his fault. I especially wasn’t a fan on how after he planned to leave Puss as food for the vultures and lead a monstrous bird to destroy a civilisation, it took him a mere millisecond to do the right thing alongside Puss, before making a horribly-forced heroic sacrifice.

Not to mention but have looked at his design recently? It’s the weirdest design of any DreamWorks character I’ve seen so far, even more than the human-teethed ugly creatures from Antz and Shark Tale; with Humpty Dumpty’s overall feature, it consisted of pasting a face with human lips across an egg. It came to a point where I actually focused my sight entirely on the variety of facial expressions and his lip movement, thinking that whether the animators actually had fun when designing him.

So, this movie was honestly a mixed bag for me as I wanted it to fully satirise the fairy tale worlds similar to its main franchise rather than retell the same story we all know. The idea of a decent beginning was there with how they set up this character and his journey into heroism, but some middle propositions clog up the overall premise, despite there being some adequate moments.

The sequel on the other hand, we’ll get to that masterpiece very soo.

Final Rating: D

5/10

[artist-issues]

Tell me every reason you enjoy Zootopia enough to give it all the rewatches you do.

Every? Oh boy.

Good Story

Perfect Characters

Visual Appeal

Earnestness

Let me break it down.

1. Good Story

Zootopia’s main point is: “Try to make the world a better place by realizing we’re fundamentally the same.”

That’s a really good main point.

It has the benefit of being true. Right now our culture is super into “self-identification,” and this crazy contrast between, “I want to be able to identify as something special” and “Now that I know what categories I fit in, I can choose who’s ‘one of us’ and who’s ’not one of us.’” Okay well that sounds pretty and I’m sure it fulfills some emotional need at some point, but it’s actually super divisive, and self-serving, and it’s the seeds for all prejudices. Including racism.

Do we have differences in origins and experiences? Yes. Of course. Do we also have some fundamental things in common? Yes. Of course. Which truth are you going to give the highest priority to? If it’s “no, I’m a prey animal, I know exactly where I belong, that’s who I am, that’s how I dress, that’s my compass for how I interact with others” then you’re getting all your security from your “sense of self,” and being able to understand what that is…which is just a fancy way of saying “I’m all about me. My own perspective informs everything I do.”

Anyway. Zootopia’s message was super true.

And the coolest thing about it is that if only Judy were in the wrong, and the other half of the dynamic duo, Nick, was this open-minded, un-prejudiced guy…and she just hurts him and has to apologize…the movie’s message wouldn’t be as well-communicated.

They have their prejudices and their hurt-from-being-prejudiced-against in common!

They’re the same…because they’ve both felt what it’s like to be treated like they’re not “the same.”

Nick isn’t the only character being mistreated and written off because of his species. The whole first half of the movie is about Judy being mistreated and written off. They think she can’t be a cop because she’s little and cute and a prey-animal. They think Nick can’t be trustworthy because he’s sneaky and small and a predator.

So literally…if Judy represented one race, and Nick represented a completely different race…the movie would be saying that both those races are discriminated against. They even have discrimination in common. AND, if Nick represented men who people make assumptions about because he’s a man, and Judy represented women who people make assumptions about because she’s a woman—the movie would be saying that both those genders are falsely judged.

I mean. Wow. Right now, your movie is either pro-woman or pro-man. Right now, your movie is either BLM or white-supremacy. Everybody’s lining up on one side of the line or the other. Zootopia says, “it doesn’t matter what character you’re looking at, from the elephant that can’t remember anything to the two main characters—every single one of them has fundamental things in common, and one of those things is that they all live like they’re in their own special category. When actually, they’re all fundamentally the same.”

I don’t want to keep beating the dead horse. But I have a post somewhere that lists every background character and points out that each animal is the exact opposite of what you would assume they are based on their animal-stereotype. The otters are never shown being playful or snuggly, only traumatized and ferocious. The cheetah is fat and slow, not quick or even quick on the uptake. Etc.

Even if you look outside of characters—look at the sets. Look at the environments. The whole city is designed “for animals, by animals.” But it’s in neat little segments. The animals organize themselves by habitat. Of course, in one sense that’s practical—the polar bears can’t live in Sahara Square, etc. but the point is, by making Judy and Nick, the main characters, small animals, in a city where everything is built to accommodate by species—UGH this is so good—they have to figure out how to problem-solve in situations that weren’t made to accommodate them.

Little Rodentia? Judy has to avoid stepping on all the mice or knocking over their buildings. Parking tickets? She has to figure out how to jump to reach bigger animals’ windshields—or she inconveniences smaller animals because the tickets are all printed at the exact same size. Stuck in a cell? The guards didn’t think about the fact that small animals can fit down the pipes made to accommodate big animals.

Zootopia is a city advertised to be where all the animals can come together. But the way they do that is by trying to accommodate every species’ preferences. So then actually while they try to come together, everything from their cars to their districts remind them of their differences. The whole idea is that they prioritize the wrong truths. Yeah, mice can’t drive giraffe cars—but they still have “driving” in common. See?

And oh my word. Initially it was supposed to be a spy story. But they changed it to a buddy cop story. Why? Well because justice doesn’t discriminate. Or at least, it’s not supposed to. So then there’s another lens to look at the story’s main theme through.

It’s just that every layer, every perspective you look at the movie from, is just hammering that truth into you: “Try to make the world a better place by realizing we’re fundamentally the same.”

2. Perfect Characters

Every character is so well-thought-through in this movie, even the side characters. You get the feeling you could watch a whole movie based on the side characters, because that’s the amount of love and nuance built into them.

Look at the main ones, though. Bellwhether is supposed to be soft and a follower. She’s a sheep. Instead, she’s hard and bitter—and she’s a leader. A villainous leader, but a leader, nonetheless. Even as she tries to keep animals divided based on fear of their stereotypes, she’s not fitting her own stereotype. Her voice actress has this strained, half-hoarse, but sweet voice. Like you can tell that this character has spent a lot of time under pressure and trying to manage appearances. Appearing like she’s fine, and she can handle it—until you realize that the appearance she’s really managing is “the cultural fear-based identify of the city.” They dress her in plaid and flowers and she’s a farm animal, because that’s the kind of character Judy would be most likely to trust. But she still has green eyes, and jagged teeth, so that when she does start making evil expressions there are some caricature-pieces in there that come out and accentuate that.

Nick Wilde—everybody’s favorite—is supposed to be sly and smooth and shifty. And he is. He’s a fox. But he’s also brave, helpful, and trustworthy. The first time you see him is when he’s dodging out of the way of a bigger animal ignoring him and about to run him over. Well, that’s important.

Because Judy knows what it’s like to have to get out of the way of larger animals, because they overlook her.

So right off the bat, this character she has to get along with and work with, this character who furthers her development and nails the main point, is introduced in a way that has something in common with her. But he’s also introduced in a way that gives her an opportunity to focus on a different truth—that he is different from her. Because the sheep is yelling that he’s a “fox.” Right away, we’re back to species-as-identification.

And that’s what the movie does, all the way through. It presents new animal characters, and with those new animals characters, more than one thing is true at a time. And Judy has to try to focus on which truth is more important. “Try to make the world a better place by realizing we’re all the same.” Yes, Nick is a criminal. But Nick is also brave, helpful, and eventually, becomes trustworthy.

Judy, too. Judy is an incredibly well-done character. Because she believes, in her head, that anyone can be anything—which is not what the movie ends on. In fact, she goes from saying, “anyone can be anything,” to saying, “we all have limitations.” It’s not true that a fox can be an elephant. But it is true that a fox can be trustworthy. Figure out what’s true, and try to make decisions for the better, based on that.

I could talk about character design and acting. Ginnifer Goodwin gives just the right amount of smugness and self-confidence to Judy without making her unlikeable—you don’t realize she’s smug and her self-confidence is misplaced until she does, when she fails to make the world a better place for Nick.

Judy wears tight, actionable, well-fitting uniforms for the whole movie. In her civilian clothes when she comes to Zootopia, she’s wearing athletic t-shirts and shorts. Ready for action, that’s Judy, even in her civvies. Meanwhile, Nick? Nick wears loose-fitting clothes. Loud, patterned clothes that don’t match. Like he didn’t even what, ladies and gentlemen? Like he didn’t even TRY. “Try to make the world a better place…”

Because when you meet Nick Wilde, he’s long since given up on trying, in life. So his character design reflects that. He rarely even stands up straight, or opens his eyes all the way—his default is drooping. And guess what?

When Judy “gives up?” Quits her job? Goes back home? Stops trying? Her civvies aren’t ready-for-action, trying clothes. They’re loose flannels. And her “ears are droopy.”

SERIOUSLY, you can find things like this in every corner of the movie. For every character. Not one character is a throwaway, not in voice acting, not in design, not in animation, and not in narrative.

3. Visual Appeal

Which leads me into this point—no other animated anthropomorphic animal movie is as visually appealing as Zootopia.

What Zootopia does is it matches the best of the best anthropomorphic animal designs from past Disney movies:

And they marry it with this incredible intentionality with modern CGI.

Did you know Disney invents its own software for things like fur textures?

The sheep’s wool, the velvet pig skin, the fox fur, the bunny fluff—it’s all completely different textures. There’s no one “fur” covering all the hairy mammals.

Nick isn’t just orange. He’s orange with deep red and dark tufts. Judy has black tips to her ears, too—which helps the two of them look like, in some sense, they belong “together” in every shot.

It’s so important to the movie that the animals feel like animals that they worked this hard to do this. And then that extends to the textures of the snow, the ice, the sand, the wet leaves, the grass, the fire.

Every character moves like their animal, and like themselves. Nick and Gideon are both foxes, but they don’t move similarly at all. Gideon is aggressive and glowering and physical. Nick, again, is slouchy, leans on everything, completely non-confrontational.

Other anthropomorphic animal movies like Sing or Puss in Boots—they’re not doing both as well. Zootopia is appealing, without sacrificing realism completely, and without cutting character acting.

The lighting. Nope. This post is too long, I can’t talk any more.

4. Earnestness

There is no disingenuous moment in this movie.

The animators are never lazy. They always go for the challenge. They don’t cut corners. Have you ever seen “Over the Hedge?” I like Over the Hedge. But I watched it recently and it’s crazy how many shots are strategically placed so that the animators don’t have to solve a certain effects problem.

For example, when RJ sprays Hammy with cool whip to make it look like he has rabies? He doesn’t. You never see the cool whip leave the can. It just cuts away, then cuts back when RJ is pulling the can away from his face. The shots are also cut so that you never have to see gas actually come out of Stella—and you never see Vern’s full body as he gets back into his shell, just the upper part of the shell as he wiggles it around, going through the motions of putting it back on.

That’s because that stuff would be painstaking to animate. Any time one character has to interact with props or substances (especially liquids) that are not part of their model, it’s harder on the animator.

Zootopia? We’re getting full-on views of characters getting wet, fur and all, characters touching various objects and elements, foam coming out of the mouth, new clothes, new set pieces, multiple models, huge crowd shots of different animals in different outfits, all with their own movement patterns and acting.

And all that hard work and effort, aimed so totally at the main theme of the movie? Making sure it looks as good as it can? Not just that, but the way it’s written, the acting, is so genuine. They don’t hold anything back. They don’t shy away from real emotion.

Judy Hopps’ apology scene is brutal. She’s crying, having a hard time finishing a sentence, her voice is all tight. It’s not pretty, it’s not romantic, it’s like…ugly crying. And her character is wrong in a super embarrassing way. They're not afraid to go there. The writers, the actors, the animators—they’re not afraid of being too vulnerable with these character flaws.

So many movies, especially kids’ movies today—they just pull up and shy away from being real through their characters. They think a quick sad facial expression will get the point across. And it does. The audience gets that the character feels sad about whatever the circumstance of the scene is. But not as powerfully. Because you didn’t put as much work and heart into it.

Zootopia is all heart, from work ethic to vulnerability to the filmmakers enjoying what they’re doing, enough to make it as good as it can possibly be. I can’t explain it better, other than to say, you feel like they would’ve been happy making this movie much much longer than it was. You feel like they’re cramming every bit of joy and passsion into every little joke, every side character, every hair on a CGI bear.

There you go. Long post, you did ask for it

[000marie198]

Seeing my favorite stuff making the lists makes me smile :]

[moviewarfare]

A Review of “Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024)”

I love the Kung Fu Panda trilogy! The 3rd movie felt like a nice wrap-up for the series. However, modern movie studios just can't give up on milking a franchise. Now we have a 4th entry in the series. Is this movie justified, or is it just another cash grab?

Jack Black is still great as Po. He still hasn't lost his charm and continues to deliver a hilarious and charismatic, vocal performance. I also love that his character Po is still a badass dragon warrior. He is always the most skilled fighter in the room and I am glad they didn't make him weaker for the sake of it. Awkwafina is again voicing another sidekick character. She is fine but that is mostly because her character isn't written to be unbearable and that makes Awkwafina bearable. Their characters do have a fun buddy dynamic throughout. Speaking of buddy dynamics, it was nice to see James Hong and Bryan Cranston return as Ping the Geese and Shan the Panda again. Po's fathers have their own, fun mini-adventure in the movie.

The animation is beautiful. Not to the extent of other dreamwork animated movies such as How to Train Your Dragon or Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. However, it looks very appealing for the most part. The action scenes are still very entertaining with its well choreographed Kung-fu scenes. It was also nice to see Ian McShane return as Tai Lung even though it was clearly done for nostalgia bait.

Unfortunately, the story is predictable and boring. Po is required by Master Shifu to pick the next Dragon Warrior but Po doesn't want to and wants to remain the Dragon Warrior. This idea in itself, can be very interesting as he could potentially have to choose between his friends, The Furious Five. Sadly, they are not even in this movie so instead we get a new character in Zhen played by Awkwafina. Oh wow, I wonder who Po will pick…

Po and his dynamic with The Furious Five have always been a highlight but removing that, makes this less interesting. The villain, The Chameleon, is also extremely underwhelming. She can steal the Kung-Fu of martial artists, including previous movie villains. Her motives are weak and her presence is just not menacing enough. They try to say throughout that Po might finally meet his match but they don't do a good job of convincing us that this is true. If anything, the big final battle feels like the easiest fight that Po has ever had so far. How is The Chameleon a threat if the Furious Five weren't even needed?! Ke Huy Quan is also in the movie but his character has no depth at all so it feels like a glorified cameo. Additionally, many of the jokes didn't land. I hate that they leave awkward pauses cause they clearly thought we the audience would laugh.

Overall, this 4th movie had no reason to exist. The story is not meaningful enough to justify its existence. This will be the start of the second trilogy but the ending itself doesn't do much to make me interested in more. The ending is a fine ending to wrap up the series (again). Hopefully, the 5th entry is a lot better and this time, make sure The Furious Five are actually in the movie!

For more reviews like this visit:

https://moviewarfarereviews.blogspot.com/

[wikidotvicky]

puss in boots 2 is one of those things that help restore my hope when im down, it inspires me to move forward.

love this movie absolute 10/10 which is so ridiculous and cool

[letterboxd-worth-a-damn]

[thatgeekwiththeclipons]

Happy 58th Birthday to Academy Award Nomineted actress Salma Hayek! ^__^

[zurenie]

[evanwhosjusthere]

So I saw Ruby Gillman Teenage Kraken. And I have some thoughts...

[yellowchap]

Does anyone else remember this weird af movie??

I was randomly thinking of if id ever seen a feminine Giraffe character in media instead of the nerd guy trope(that’s so random??) and this movie hit me in the head like a brick bc this is the only thing I can remember seeing that has a feminine written giraffe in it

Looking at this film poster again gives me such weird veitnam flashbacks cuz I remember liking the movie but also having zero idea what was going on.

I’m sure if I watched it now it’d still be just as much of a train wreck as I remember

[artist-issues]

Have you seen Puss in Boots: the Last Wish? If so, what did you think of it? I feel you'd like it!

Yes!

I do love it!

Here’s my one beef.

I’m not a big fan of the…kitschiness that Dreamworks loves with some of their movies. In terms of character design, and writing. There’s something that goes on in the design department for characters in Shrek or in Megamind or even in Boss Baby that does not go on in The Croods or How to Train Your Dragon or Kung Fu Panda. Like, even the characters who are supposed to be “evil” or “stupid” are designed to be outright unappealing. And that’s not the necessarily a principle I think is great, even though it sounds like it makes sense on paper. You’ve got this:

Versus this:

I don’t know if I can accurately describe the difference. Let me try.

Titan looks like he’s got moisture on his upper lip. Jack Horner’s individual traits all maxed out to the extreme: hair, the teeth, the fat rolls—it’s all way too much. Same thing is going on with the sweatiness of the characters (even Link?) in Monsters vs. Aliens, the skin texture and individual eyebrow hairs on Farquaad, etc.

It’s too much. And it’s too much because someone in that studio thinks it’s funny to have ugly characters. And you know what, it is, but you can have “ugly” without evoking a “I don’t want to look at that” response in your audience. Drago Bludvist is ugly. He’s lopsided and scarred and looks like he got run over by a car. But you don’t look at him and feel like you’re looking at a middle school kid’s caricature with nose hairs drawn in, designed to make you hate it on sight.

You want your villains and your stupid characters to look villainous and stupid. But there’s only so much “middle school boy booger humor” you can put in character design before I start wanting to change the channel just because it’s not fun to look at anymore.

Didn’t mean to ramble about character design. My point was, Jack Horner kills the movie for me.

I get that they just wanted a plain-bad bad guy. Death is sick but he’s just doing his job. Puss is redeemed, Goldilocks is redeemed. They needed just a straight-up evil bad guy for the climax. But like…he’s gross. Not in a way that’s engaging or interesting to watch, or even fun to watch lose. He’s unappealing, he’s annoying, he’s over the top. You’re not excited to see him die because you don’t want to see him, doing anything, even if it’s dying.

And you know what…Perrito is the same way. They did not succeed with “cute-enough-to-be-ugly.” They did not succeed with “annoying enough to be funny because of how he interacts with the main characters.” He’s just ugly, and he’s just annoying. They needed him as a character. They needed a simpleminded-innocent-love-is-enough buddy for Puss to spend time with and learn from. But…gross. Disgusting bald dog with over-the-top “I’m just happy-go-lucky just beCAUSE! 😃” whiny voice did not have to be the choice.

Anyway.

I love that Puss starts out the movie with his sword and it’s a metaphor for how he has to be the Puss in Boots, the greatest of all time, the big hotshot, the fantastic hero. And then by the end he’s using that tiny blade. It’s just small. It’s borrowed. It’s not even his. That’s what he needed all along. To accept his one, small life, as long as it has love in it, instead of reaching for immortality and fame and being all-in-all to himself.

I love Death. Obviously. Very good character design, great acting, great scenes, perfect thing for Puss to be up against. They couldn’t have done better with him.

I don’t think Kitty Softpaws and Perrito needed to be in this movie. I think they really should’ve kicked Perrito out of the movie and shown that Kitty Softpaws was a former “Perrito type” character, maybe in her past and childhood, and the more they go on this journey to get the Wish together, the more she starts to soften back into that because she’s starting to go back to trusting Puss. Then he sees he’s having that affect on her, and likes it, and gets conflicted. More nuanced. Less annoying. More interesting. And that would make their little love story more endearing. He thinks they’re just playing each other as always, at first, but then realizes she’s actually trusting him, and he’s enjoying that, and the guilt mounts until she figures out he’s going to take the wish for himself—then they have their little confrontation where Death is after him and that’s why he wants it. My emotions would’ve been so much more invested. But because Kitty has to share screentime and a role in Puss’s character development with annoying bald dog, there’s not enough time for her to feel like a fully-fleshed-out-character.

I like Goldilocks and the three bears. They’re a great little side-plot. I think Goldy could’ve been given more time to develop into—again—a more nuanced character, but it worked anyway.

So in conclusion, I wish Dreamworks could work even harder and dig even deeper in some of their movies to make a more nuanced cast, for the sake of their stories. Spend less time on stupid jokes and meta-references and more on making their characters feel real. Puss in Boots was a good movie, it just doesn’t have that “it was beautiful and I’d watch it again” factor because of all the time-wasting and over-the-top character designs. I’d rather look up a few key scenes that were good, but rewatching it like I would Zootopia or How to Train Your Dragon? No.

[moviemunchies]

WHAT

There is absolutely NO REASON that a sequel to a movie from over a decade ago, which itself was a spin-off of the Shrek movies, should be THIS GOOD, and yet…???

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish goes like this: Puss in Boots, the outlaw hero, is happy to celebrate his skillz and invincibility after once again winning. However, he gets killed in the ensuing revelry. Not a problem! He’s a cat, after all, and he’s got nine lives. Except it turns out that right now he’s on his last life after blowing through his previous eight, and after a close brush with a seemingly invincible enemy, he decides to lay low and give up the life of an adventurer. Until he hears about a quest for the Wishing Star, which will grant a wish to whoever claims it. Puss plans to use the Star to get his lives back. But he’s far from the only one who is after the Wishing Star: along with his old flame Kitty Softpaws, Big Jack Horner, and Goldilocks and the Three Bears are after it for their own reasons.

Also, he’s joined by a therapy dog.

Like many others, I had absolutely no intention of seeing this film when the trailer was released online. I have seen only the first Shrek all the way through (though I have seen lots of the second and third one on TV), and never seen the first Puss in Boots. Dreamworks also hasn’t been at the top of its game in the past few years. Look, How to Train Your Dragon 3 wasn’t *bad* but it was also lacking in that spark, in part because the whole ‘The thing you liked about this series has to go away now’ was a running theme in animated movies for a couple of years and it was old. I didn’t bother with The Boss Baby. I hadn’t seen The Bad Guys but it didn’t particularly interest me, though it seemed like it did fine enough. I saw this one getting good reviews and was confused, but moved on. It wasn’t until I kept seeing rave reviews, and people I knew telling me it was fantastic, that I said, “Okay, let me look into this.”

What. The actual fudge.

This is one of the best things I’ve seen from Dreamworks. This movie is an absolute triumph. This is, in fact, astonishing in its storybook imagery animation, its thrilling action sequences, its complex character development, and dark themes. It’s amazing.

The Shrek spin-off did a story about a hero coming to terms with his own mortality.

[throws up hands in confused but impressed gestures]

HOW???

Aiding this movie is its amazing animation. In the days when Disney has sort of settled on an animation style in their CGI films, and yet is still dominating the market, it’s really cool to see a movie that is playing with how animation. The style of this movie is meant to look much more like the art you’d find in a storybook. It reminds me (and I’m far from the only one to remark this) of Into the Spider-Verse in that it’s trying to copy a specific type of artwork, and there are interesting little tidbits that are really cool if you pay close attention. Puss’s sword has a little impact mark when it hits against other blades, for instance. It feels as if someone has taken colorful pieces of concept art and brought them to life, and given how much I love concept art, I very much enjoyed this animation style.

Building on that animation point: the action scenes in this film are top-notch? The final duel between Puss and the Wolf is one of the best sword fight scenes I’ve seen in years, especially out of a new movie. Many movies don’t seem to know or care how to do a great, fast-paced sword fight, and it’s rare to see it in an animated movie either. This movie somehow managed it. In fact just about ALL the fight scenes are fantastic to watch, with the sheer amount of energy they have in them.

The performances in the film are pretty great? Antonio Banderas is playing a cartoon cat, and yet he still manages to imbue him with a lot of character? Not only is Puss in Boots an arrogant braggart at the beginning of the story, but he’s forcibly humbled, and he goes through the wringer, and Banderas’s performance reflects that pretty well. When Puss is having panic attacks at the sound of the Wolf’s creepy whistle, it’s surprisingly effective how much you feel his terror.

I also don’t think that a couple of the other performers sounded like themselves? That sounds like a dumb thing to say, but with celebrity voice actors, they’re sometimes directed to just talk into the microphone without doing anything with their voices. But I didn’t find that Kitty Softpaws sounded too much like normal Salma Hayek or that Goldilocks sounded much like Florence Pugh. Then again, I’m not overly familiar with their voices so maybe I’m wrong on that count.

That being said, I ‘ve see quite a lot of people claiming that John Mulaney’s turn as the villain Big Jack Horner was especially amazing, and while he does well, and he makes an entertaining villain, I didn’t find his work to be something particularly incredible. I wasn’t blown out of the water by his performance, is all I’m saying.

Also this movie’s hilarious. I haven’t emphasized that enough, but it is a really funny movie. Some of the humor in the film was surprisingly dark? I know that animated films sometimes can have dark humor, but there’s a lot of it here, and most of it lands. The humor fits the tone of the movie, I suppose, but it threw me off how many of the gags in the film involved things like murder and casual violence.

I fully expected Dreamworks to crank out a cookie-cutter sequel, and I should have known better. When Dreamworks is trying, really trying, they knock it out of the park. They probably knew they had to if they wanted to release a sequel to a movie from over a decade ago and make it land with audiences. It would probably have been better had I seen the previous Shrek and Puss in Boots movies, but it’s not strictly necessary, as this entry has enough explanation of past events that you won’t need it.

[toonstarterz]

I finally watched Puss in Boots: The Last Wish yesterday.

Very deserving of all the praise it gets. Lusciously animated with shockingly well-executed themes about mortality, genuine fear, and family of choice. And this coming from a guy who hasn't even watched the Shrek movies.

[chaos-hand]

So, finally watched Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, and it was very good! Animation was top notch, good humor and story and all, it reminded me a bit of Spiderverse with the animation style and choices. It was good stuff! Definitely worth a watch if you are curious about it!

[kitchfit]

Year in Review: Movies Part 1

I don't have that great of an attention span. If its something I am invested in I can spend hours upon hours reading or playing through it until I get a headache telling me its time for bed, but if something doesn't hook me after around 30 minutes I'm probably turning it off or putting it down for a bit. It is for this reason I don't finish a lot of movies unless there is another reason to watch through it all. Usually that means watching it with other people. If there aren't friends to help me finish this movie it's probably going back in the case, which I think is true for all but one movie on this list.

Glass Onion

Knives Out is one of my favorite movies of all time. I've not read any of Agatha Christie's works which is who Benoit Blanc is largely parodying, but I do love other things inspired by her such as Columbo, and the first movie is a stellar deconstruction of that genre, while still providing an engaging mystery. I saw this movie's baby brother at the dawn of the New Year alongside my cousin, both fervently pushing out trope appropriate theories only to be completely wrong at the twist ending in plain sight.

This sequel is not anything as elegant as the first, but still seeks to deconstruct mystery tropes in a very similar fashion. The mastermind behind a series of murders or even one murder is a role often given to rich, suave, and intelligent people of high standing. It is this role that Edward Norton's character sees himself as, but while he is a rich dude of high standing, he is a more realistic rich dude than most murder mystery antagonists; that is, an arrogant dumbass who got where he is by manipulating and screwing over everyone he can. He wants to be complex while being transparently simple. Also he smells. LIKE AN ONION. WHOA. ONE MADE OUT OF GLASS. THANKS JOHN LEMON.

A Silent Voice

A good way to get me to watch a movie until the end is to make it animated, that way even if its boring as all hell I still get to look at some pretty art. That's not the case with this movie. I first watched this on a bus ride when I was sixteen with one earphone on while the girl next to me held it up on her phone. That was a good memory, but seeing the gorgeous animation on the big screen was a nice treat.

I love the dynamic between the two main characters. I wouldn't say this movie is a romance in any real sense of the term, but is about a relationship. Both of these kids spend most of their adolescence admonishing themselves for hurting the other, believing everyone hates them for what happened when they were 10. This is especially tragic for Shouko, the deaf girl who did literally nothing besides exist and try to make friends. The fact that she blames herself for her bully becoming ostracized is even played as a twist, but its a very realistic mindset anyone can fall into. The theme is forgiveness of the self after others have already forgiven you, which can be pretty tough to do, especially when you've done some genuinely shitty stuff.

I also showed this movie to my mom, an ASL instructor and translator, cause I thought it might be interesting for her, but she lost interest and fell asleep after she realized it was JSL and couldn't understand it.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

My friends were freaking out about this film, one of them going so far as to watch it like six separate times within the span of a couple weeks. This made me expect it to blow my mind, but it was just a very well written, beautifully animated movie about a cat coming to terms with its own death. I think the drought of movies with good writing from mainstream studios really elevated this one further than it would have normally. It was nice to return to this character, having grown up with the Shrek films, and doubly nice to see his character arc being used to discuss a serious topic in a healthy way.

The central conflict is the most compelling aspect of the story, the John Mulaney villain and Goldilocks subplot are funny and entertaining, but the effectiveness of Death as the main antagonist is genius. The Shrek universe has always been a conglomeration of fairytales and folktales brought to one setting, and who is most common death metaphor than the big bad wolf? Or I'm sorry. Not a metaphor. He's just Death. Straight up. You don't outrun death or win against it in any meaningful capacity, and the story could only end with Puss' acceptance that he will die. There's no Sisypussing his way out of this one. Pussyphusing? Pfft.

X-Men: First Class

My dad and I decided to watch through every X-Men movie earlier this year. We managed two of them. They're good movies, most of them at least, but marathoning all *looks at watch* eleven films just never came to fruition. This one might be in my top 3 for X-Men movies, though. Xavier and Magneto's relationship has always been the most interesting part of these films, and this movie puts it front and center. Xavier's focus on helping his friend make peace with his traumatic past is something so genuinely sweet that ultimately empowers his greatest enemy. It's this understanding they have with each other, established in this movie, that underlines every interaction they have in the future.

The rest of this movie is pretty standard origin story stuff for the ensemble cast. How the Beast Became Blue. How Mystique Stopped Pretending and Became Her True Blue Self. How the Guy Who's Power is To Never Die, Died. It's fun for what it is but overall pretty generic.

X-Men: Days of Future Past

This is also one of the better X-Men films, not sure if I'd put it in the top 3, but there's enough time travel nonsense in this movie to make me giddy. I love paradoxical bullshit. This movie works as both a direct sequel to First Class, while also working in the continuity of the first 7 or so films. It's the Apocalypse, baby! Okay, not that Apocalypse, I still haven't seen that one, but we are introduced to one of the more famous fascist genocidal hellscapes to come out of Marvel comics. The story starts at the very end of this murderous crusade, only a handful of mutants are still alive, grouped together as a unit in some abandoned... temple bunker? I'm sure this is explained somewhere in the movie, but it makes a cool setting to fight for your life in.

Most of the plot, however, takes place in the 70s. It was a big twist in the comics that the girl who can walk through space without hindrance can also walk through time the same way, but in this movie Kitty Pryde can only send other people into their past selves, meaning it's once again Wolverine's turn to take the spotlight, because Hugh Jackman is more expensive than Elliot Page. It makes less sense, but this movie still has a lot of fun jumping between the past and future versions of established characters. Angry, passionate Magneto in his 30s vs the wizened Sir Ian McKellen Magneto. At some point the X Man himself gets to talk directly to his depressed, 70s incarnation. Not to mention Quicksilver is there, which is always nice.

This was the "Rogue Cut," which adds cut content about Rogue infiltrating a sentry factory to blow it up. The new stuff doesn't add a lot, but I did like her character from earlier films, so it was cool to see her again.

Shrek

After the joy of obsessing over Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, one of my friends insisted that we all catch up on the deep lore of the franchise, and go through every Shrek movie in order. Unlike with X-Men, we succeeded in one marathon through them all. The dude who suggested this also made the assertion that PiB: Wish was the first Shrek film to feature blood and cursing. This is patently false and I took immense pleasure in proving him wrong. *whispers* Shrek says ass within the first twenty minutes, don't tell mom!

The first movie got memed on quite a bit, but I think most people have come around to enjoying it in a genuine sense. It's a cute love story with a good message and funny fard jokes. I don't think the gross-out humor really oversteps in bounds, and it would feel pretty bizarre in hindsight if a movie like Shrek ever toned that stuff down. There were a lot of movies with "fairytales come to life and their rude and goofy," as their premise, (think Hoodwinked, another fun movie) but I think the style of the Shrek world comes off in the most endearing way. Or maybe that's just nostalgia talking.

Shrek 2

I have the soundtrack of this movie embedded into my skull. I had the CD growing up and would make my mom play it in the car on the way to primary school ad nauseum. I also had the entire movie with incredibly compressed graphics on my GBA. This classic film is synonymous with my early childhood, and it holds up really well. It's shorter than I remembered, but I think that's just because it's so expertly paced.

It also introduces our favorite fearless hero, who blends effortlessly into the main cast. All of the character's play off of each other really well, actually. The gags of a royal knight planting catnip on Puss or Gingy yelling "IT'S A THONG" to get Pinocchio to lie still get me. Not to mention the perfect fight scene scored by "I Need a Hero." Every studio with rights to that song have been chasing that high ever since.

Shrek the Third

Some people hate this movie with genuine vile and malice in their hearts. Maybe that's harsh. It definitely doesn't match the highs of either of the first two, but I still enjoyed it a lot as a kid and had a good time with it now. My friend noted that the first half of this film has a lot of funny gags that peter out in the second half, where the focus is on Shrek's complicated feelings on fatherhood. There are moments in the movie where I can tell it can't decide whether to write a scene with appropriate drama or make a stupid joke, which is odd as the first one balanced those aspects pretty elegantly.

This movie does have a sequence where the classic fairytale princesses learn martial arts from Julie Andrews and kick the bark covered asses of the trees from Wizard of Oz, all to the beat of Barracuda. Disney could never. I also like that Prince Charming takes a more central role as antagonist in the story this time around, which feels very appropriate for the setting. Justin Timberlake is here too I guess. Damn, I forgot about him. Sorry Justin.

Shrek the Final Chapter

This movie came out when I believed myself toooo olllllllld and MATURE for silly animated movies with farting in them. I had grown, and was ready for stuff like *looks at movies that came out 2010* MEGAMIND, an even sillier animated movie with still probably several fart jokes. I had a bunch of reasons for disliking this one when it came out, but I don't really recall any of them. This movie is pretty wild upon revisiting. Shrek pulls a It's a Wonderful Life with Rumpelstiltskin and is pulled into an alternate universe fanfiction where he never existed, joins an Ogre resistance and tries to get his wife to fall in love with him again. It's such a goofy premise with some fairly well constructed dramatic moments. It's also very good 3D animation for its time, which might be consistent with the rest of the series.

There's a scene where Rumpelstiltskin jumps off a ledge and makes a weird noise that I cannot for the life of me find on youtube, but it sticks in my brain for some reason. He's a pretty fun villain, overall, all of his scenes made me laugh. I think we watched the other Puss in Boots movie after this, but I fell asleep. Sorry Justin.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife

This franchise got reimagined with a new cast a few years ago, and for some reason became a controversial focus of American politics for several weeks. I mean not for some reason, it was really just sexism. Women? Fighting ghosts??? Only men fight ghosts in real life, everyone knows that. This movie, on the other hand, is a direct sequel to the original film and also didn't come out during an election year, so even though Girls do be Fighting Ghosts in this one, there was less outrage around it. It's a fun homage to the original, but doesn't acknowledge the original Ghostbusters 2 in the least, and that movie genuinely freaked me out as a kid with its pink slime that kills you.

The film focuses on the very autistic granddaughter of the late and famously autistic member of the original cast, Egon. She's a delightful protagonist throughout the story, working with the ghost of her grandfather to uncover the truth behind the natural disasters plaguing her Podunk town. There are also some fun new ghost designs our child heroes have to overcome. The supporting cast is serviceable, mostly focused around Finn Wolfhard and Paul Rudd's eternal struggle to get dates before the world is eaten by Gozer, or whoever. There's a lot of nostalgia bait in this movie. The OG Ghostbusters even make a Deus Ex Machina style cameo, saving Baby Egon at the last moment aside a CGI Harold Ramis that did get me to tear up a little. This whole movie was dedicated to him, which is sweet.

Kingdom Hearts: Back Cover

Remember when I said I was done talking about Kingdom Hearts for this year? No? You haven't been reading these? That's okay, I was lying anyway. As part of my full bodily integration into this series, I watched the entirety of the KH Union X Cutscenes interspersed with clips from the Back Cover movie in order of the proper timeline of events. This is probably the sanest way to experience this story. The original has you play a mobile game where you are updated on the plot every ten or so boring ass missions and then watch the movie as a companion piece. It's a pretty engaging narrative by KH standards, but its told in the most batshit way possible, which I guess is also up to KH standards. You can watch it here, if the embeds work:

The first part of this story focuses on a member of the Keyblade Guilds, who is slowly encroaching upon the reality that the organization they're apart of is tearing itself apart. All of the Guild Masters are in conflict over a potential traitor, and this suspicion eventually spirals into an entire war. The Master of these Masters, or MoM, is largely implied to have orchestrated the entire event. The second half focuses on the fallout from that war as the surviving Guild members try to escape the end of the world.

I got pretty attached to several of the characters and their ultimate fate, but I think this could have worked better as a TV show rather than a REALLY BORING MOBILE GAME. I guess you can watch it as a TV show, if you watch the video above in 30 minute chunks, and if you're okay with beautiful 3D animated cutscenes transitioning into kind of stale sprite art at random.

Alright ending this here. I didn't finish this on Friday as I had some other Things going on, so we're in for a double feature! Hopefully, I'll continue on the games list which will be out this evening. I'm writing these ahead of time so who knows???