32. Puss in Boots
I’m glad I finally saw this movie. I love Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (so much so that I saw that film twice the same day I first saw it). This film wasn’t anywhere near as good as that one but before seeing it for this list I had such an intense curiosity about it. What is it about this film that allowed for The Last Wish to springboard off of it and become the masterpiece that it is?
Well, to be honest, there are only hints of that in this film. When I was watching it, I was finding it good and fine enough but the more it went on the more I was enjoying it. The animation, music, and movement of the characters was very unique and the sequences this film has lends itself to a lot of fun moments. Granted, some of them can go on a bit too long but the moments themselves being as good as they were kept that from feeling like a real problem.
The actual big thing about this film that almost made me start to think it could have been a better movie than most of the Shrek films is the backstory between Puss and his adoptive brother, Humpty Dumpty. The backstory that’s told between the two of them is genuinely gripping and intriguing. Even better is how it’s not treated like a quick flashback scene. It takes up a good chunk of the movie and that works in its favor.
Because you’re allowed to let these moments breathe, both Puss and Dumpty’s behavior and their relationship feels genuine and I actually felt it when that fork in the road comes and the two start to go down different paths. Humpty Dumpty, feeling threatened by the loss of his brother to the allure of being a hero, forces Puss into the life of an outlaw against his will. This, of course, ends up driving a wedge between the two of them and destroying the old life that Puss once loved.
I honestly kind of wish they had stuck with this premise as the focal point of the film itself, honestly. A tale of these two brothers growing up together with dreams of grandeur and then separating when they went down different paths sounds good. It sounds even better when you factor in how tragic the turning point is for Puss when he’s forced to go down Humpty’s path physically but not mentally.
It’s a heavy betrayal on Humpty’s part. Puss was becoming a better person. He was a hero in the eyes of the people of his town and the step mom that he loved. So being set-up and tricked into being an accomplice to a crime you didn’t commit, a decision that ultimately wrecked his life, by someone so close to him had the potential to be the most gripping and tragic story this franchise had to tell.
However, when Humpty Dumpty re-enters his life the movie centers around the two of them teaming up with Kitty Softpaws to fulfill Humpty’s dream of getting golden eggs from the goose that lies at the top of the beanstalk from Jack and the Beanstalk. This isn’t a bad choice as it lends itself to a lot of wonderful action set-pieces and wonderful scenery. I honestly thought everything that happened in this part of the film was really good too.
No, the problem comes in at the ending and it soured me enough on the film to drop it several places below where I was originally going to put it.
So, all throughout the film our gang here is being chased by whom we think are supposed to be the main villains of the movie, Jack and Jill. That’s right. There’s a Jack in this movie but it isn’t the one from Jack and the Beanstalk. Anyway, it turns out that they’re not the main antagonists. No, in the end, Humpty Dumpty hired them and Puss ends up being proven right to have had his suspicions about Humpty Dumpty at the start.
The twist is good. I actually liked that it turned out that he was the one behind it all. It was obvious something was up with him and it was all but confirmed before it happened when Kitty was attempting to warn Puss about something. The story beats that follow are what’s weird to me though.
Humpty Dumpty has stolen the goose that lays the golden eggs and it’s a derpy little duckling with an always confused face. It’s an adorable little idiot that shits out eggs that’ll make the two rich and prosperous. He uses the fact that he took credit for this as a way of getting back into the town’s good graces, I guess? It’s weird that he’s not apprehended by the cops, same as Puss, since he was also found to be stealing gold from the town in the incident that saw Puss being his accomplice. Why is Humpty taking credit for the gold getting him off the hook when Puss could just do the same?
I'm just saying, they were both guilty of the thing that Puss became an outlaw for. Either this makes them both heroes or they both get thrown in jail. Right?
That confusion alone I could maybe forgive but when Puss is thrown in jail to rot away forever, he meets Humpty Dumpty’s old cell mate and he’s told that stealing the derpy goose chick will bring the wrath of its disgusting goose mom down on the two. It’s a huge ass goose that could easily destroy the place. Puss gets help from Kitty and breaks out to confront Humpty Dumpty about this to enlist his help in saving the town.
However, Humpty Dumpty, as it turns out, already knew that was going to happen. He brought the goose to his home town in the hopes that its mom would show up and destroy everything.
By now, you’re thinking, wow, what an awful, awful person right? Like, yeah, his backstory with Puss is tragic and his affection for Puss does feel genuine but it really feels like the movie is setting out to make sure he’s become quite the awful bastard despite that.
After all, the only reason he sought Puss out to make amends was so he could trick him into getting thrown in jail again and he cites the reason why he does this as Puss "abandoning him". He says that and I’m like “Bitch, you framed him for a crime he didn’t commit and ruined his life. Where do you get off being mad at Puss for abandoning your ass on the bridge when the cops came?”
Worse still, when Puss escapes prison to confront Humpty to ask for his help, Puss actually apologizes for it too. Because at the end of the day, Puss is a pretty nice guy. He acknowledges Humpty’s pain and feels genuine remorse and regret for his actions that day, which I still find admirable even though I 100% agree with his initial decision to leave Humpty to his fate for doing what he did.
This man is horrible but because Puss wants his brother back we have to sit there and watch him perform talk no jutsu on him so that they can team up and stop the goose from destroying the town and it’s just not… it doesn’t really work man.
Humpty has lingering affection for Puss, sure, but that bit about him just makes him an interesting and real character despite how bad a person he is. Seeing him just double back on what he was planning on doing because Puss speeched at him about how he’s good underneath just makes him feel less real. I didn’t buy his sudden turn around. It was the one thing in the film that felt like it happened too fast.
It's not even the fact that he turns good again that's the problem. The film had an opportunity to make that feel genuine too. Humpty’s old cell mate, the one who told Puss what would happen should the goose come to town looking for its baby, warned Humpty Dumpty of the same thing. If Humpty Dumpty simply didn’t believe him or wasn’t told what would happen then enough wiggle room could have been left for it to feel believable that he’d want to save the town. Hell, it actually makes more sense if he did want to save the town because he was shown handing out golden eggs to everyone and went out of his way to have Puss take his place in prison.
But no, because Humpty Dumpty knows the goose is going to destroy the town when Puss asks for his help we can’t have him already be at a believable mind-set that would allow him to make this decision. It just happens really fast and culminates in a scene where Puss has to either drop the baby bird or Humpty Dumpty off a collapsing bridge and Humpty Dumpty lets go of his own accord.
You know, that self-sacrificing thing that assholes in movies do to redeem themselves in the end. Only here, he turns into a golden egg… somehow? And then the goose grabs the golden egg and flies back into the sky???
I truly don’t know what to make of what happened to him at the end. Perhaps it’s something tied to the original story that I need to look up to understand. Either way though, it just left me confused.
They absolutely did not stick the landing when it came to the story between these two characters and it’s a huge shame because their backstory could have made for a wonderful movie all on its own if re-tooled a little bit. Start off with him already a wanted man as an adult the same way you do here and go into it from there.
I don’t really have much at all to say about Kitty Softpaws in this movie. Unlike the Last Wish, she’s nowhere near as interesting. That isn’t to say she’s uninteresting but it is very much “insert female love interest here” for the most part. Not completely without nuisance but not enough to stand out just yet.
I want to say more but there really isn’t much more. This film’s biggest win is in the flashback setting up Puss and Humpty Dumpty’s relationship and the rest of it is just a mostly solid film with a, to me, disappointing and confused climax. The very, very end is nice in that Puss is still an outlaw but the people whom he cares about and respects the most do in fact care and respect him back again. That feels rewarding and it warmed my heart.
