La véritable histoire du Chat Botté

"It's a trap!" -Admiral Ackbar- The same could be spoken of this film. Whenever a great film is released, or even just anticipated, anyone with the ability to churn our their own knockoff is going to release their dumbed-down version so as to capitalize on the success or hype of the original. The True Story of Puss in Boots is one such film.

While I'm quite the plot, if you wish to call it that, differs quite widely from Dreamworks upcoming film, the cover was way to much like the Dreamworks cover to make me think that this film being released about the same time was mere coincidence. The film makers knew you would get this by accident, thinking you were getting the American made film staring Antonio Banderas...and so did Redbox. Hence, why I want my dollar back.

The characters in this film are just awful, and the American dubbed voice acting does them no justice (Shatner sounds like Herbert the Pervert from Family Guy) there is your pop-obsessed princess, an obese king, a drunk queen, your demon-clown chamberlain (who I am convinced was supposed to be the court jester in the French version) and for some reason an ogre who seems to be more along the lines of Cthulhu.

The plot makes no sense, and I will not even attempt to walk you through it. I got bored after 15 minutes and just completely lost track of what was going on.

I don't fault the French for trying to trick us into getting this film. What I do fault them for is deliberately messing up a story that originated in their country far worse than any American hack could. The blame for tricking us lies with Redbox for trying to pass this abomination off as the Dreamworks film we actually wanted to see. If you're reading this review, it is likely because you fell for the trap as I did. In that case, I can only offer my condolences. In the off-chance someone reads this before renting this film, do not get it!

This animation movie is really useless. Not for smile, not for learn, without a useful moral. Graphics is banal and similar to other movies, does not add anything new to the gender. Also the soundtrack is not related with the supposed audience (I think this film was supposed for young guys, lessthen 10 year) since the song are mostly dance music. I think the writers of the tale supposed to tell a funny rearrangement of Puss'n Boots, but they dramatically fails. This kind of animation movies must be different from that movie. I think the director could work better than now. I can't find any reason to see this movie, only the title is appetizing, but this is a virtue of the marketing.. :). Not recommended.

I'm sure my impression of it would have been much better had I listened to it in the original French. But William Shatner was a horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE choice for the voice of the English version. His raspy, shaky voice and constant non-verbal noises he kept making just utterly ruined it. In the prior release, for English-speaking audiences, I suppose we were spoiled by Antonio Bandaras' as the cat. Shatner's Puss was just plain nails-on-chalkboard awful. Totally ruined any potential enjoyment I might have been able to get out of it. The story itself was okay, though definitely a bit on the "silly" side - but it doesn't seem to be geared towards an adult audience, so that's okay.

I can't really comment on the French version, though surely they had to have a better voice than Shatner. If you're listening to it in English, just don't expect an experience even remotely similar to the original movie release. This movie was nothing like it. At. All.

There are elements to this movie that are very pretty. Many of the visuals are stunning, excellently deep textures throughout. The characters by and large good but their movements can be very strange at times.

The real problem is the murkiness of the story. A narrator would have been an excellent improvement. Without an internal monologue or narration the cat seems to be crazier than you would guess. The setting is perplexing with random elements from Spanish, Middle Eastern, and French styling with no clear rhyme or reason. Also for no clear reason a school of ghost fish come to life near the end. yep.

The voice acting was also painful. Namely Shatner's cat voice is something to truly despise. The monkey is Jamaican? Most disappointingly is that they didn't get a quality singer for the princess.

This last point sticks out because there was a lot of music in this movie. It has a charming American Indie vibe including stripped down percussion and on occasion a ukulele. But her voice fails to be either traditional or suitably indie.

Also the Ogre is inexorably dumb and useless as a villain.

Claims that this is trying to cash in on the Shrek movie may be true, we thought that was what we were renting. Still, when we realized, we were not disappointed and were willing to give it a try...

Only to be severely disappointed. The story is not compelling, the characters are unsympathetic and ugly in both visage and voice. The animation is weak and odd (and not in the cool good way). We waited for it to get better but it just trundled along in mediocrity. I fell asleep somewhere a little after halfway despite giving it my best. The survivors reported it was as bad through to the end.

I was intrigued to find out it is from France as it did have that vibe that used to come from several foreign-produced cartoons when I was younger (Dogtanion, around the world in 80 days etc). I think it's the way they try and cram the English language into French-animated mouths. Indeed, this may have succeeded more as a traditional cartoon, possibly a series.

To sum up, not worth watching. Go track down the Christopher Walken live-action version. I stumbled on it by accident one day and ended up watching it all the way through, spellbound.