Fun, But Maybe Too Many Fairy Tales Packed Into One Story

Rating: 7/10 (4 November 2011)

Spun off from the "Shrek" series of movies, where Puss was one of the many fairy tale characters who made appearances, Puss now takes on centre stage in a movie of his own, which also revolves around the weaving together of many, many (perhaps even too many!) fairy tale characters in what was a fun kind of adventure - some of which was probably a little too advanced for the children in the audience, but somewhat surprisingly the audience in the theatre I was in had a lot of adults, some of whom didn't seem to be there with children, so the movie clearly appeals to a broad spectrum.
I enjoyed it. It was pretty well animated, the action/adventure was a good ride and there were a lot of laughs. The theatre was rarely silent; people were enjoying themselves. I did think, though, that the movie tried to incorporate too much. The Shrek movies used a lot of fairy tale characters, but they mostly revolved around Shrek's own and unique story. Here, we have a mish-mash of fairy tales with overlapping stories where everything gets blurred - and the story of Puss In Boots isn't consistent with the character's history, dating back to the 17th century, when the story was first published in France. The primary secondary character is Humpty Dumpty - who's portrayed as a shifty kind of character, with a lifelong (if love-hate) relationship with Puss. The story revolves around the search for magic beans that are in the possession of an old and very tough-looking couple of thieves named Jack and Jill. Once Puss and Humpty get the magic beans - guess what! They grow into a giant beanstalk that leads to the clouds, where Humpty and Puss - and Kitty Softpaws (Puss's love interest) find not a giant (he's dead) but do come across a baby goose that lays golden eggs, and they bring her back down, only to incur the wrath of her giant mother. You get the point. Mish-mash kind of sums it up. The giant Mother Goose running amok through the town was the point at which I thought this really went overboard.
But I can't deny that most of the way through this was fun - and I can't deny the laughs that it brought forth from me and from others around me. (7/10)