Puss In Boots

Well, at least it's not another Shrek movie. You can start there with Puss In Boots, though The Flower declined to see this, stating she wasn't interested in any prequels or spin-offs or any of that nonsense. (A friend of mine went to see this and was crushed that it wasn't about the real Puss In Boots stories.)

In my book, it's probably better to set something in the same universe as another film than to try to wring out another sequel from poor ol' Shrek and Fiona, and the change of focus keeps them from dragging out a bunch of references to the original films that were tired in Shrek 4.

Unfortunately, this replaces them with even older tropes, in most cases.

You don't want to make the cat angry!

I make this look good!

PiB is the story of the rogue cat (voiced by Antonio Banderas) and his childhood pal, Humpty Dumpty (Zach Gallafianikis, of course) who gets him into trouble when Puss becomes a hero and Dumpty a thief. So, it's Dead End with an animated cat and egg.

They're seeking out the magic beans in order to get to the castle where the Goose That Lays The Golden Egg resides, and Dumpty has solicited the help of Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek, of course) in their adventure.

The Barb liked it. People in the audience actually clapped when it was over and I saw no alcoholic beverages being served.

I thought it was by-the-numbers and not all that well done, lacking most of the cleverness of the Shrek movies—though at least seeming less tied into the pop-meme-of-the-moment. Actually the hacky phrases above are pretty indicative. It relies a lot on the "cat's are cute" idea, and clearly the producers had been influenced by "Family Guy"'s Brian (the dog) and "South Park". Not vulgarity-wise, but there's a strong hint of the Pandemic episode of "South Park" at the climax.

Not unpleasant, but way below the bar set by animation in recent years. That's actually pretty true of all the animated films this year.

At some point, with all my "meh" reactions of late, I have to wonder: Maybe it's me?