Puss in Boots (2011 film)

Puss in Boots is a Spanish-speaking, anthropomorphic cat named for his signature pair of boots. A fugitive on the run from the law, Puss is seeking to restore his lost honor. He learns that the murderous outlaw couple Jack and Jill have the magic beans he has long sought, which can lead him to a giant's castle known by legend to contain valuable golden goose eggs. When Puss attempts to steal the beans at their hideout, a female cat named Kitty Softpaws interrupts. She was hired to steal them as well by Humpty Alexander Dumpty, a talking egg and long-estranged childhood friend of Puss from the orphanage where they both were raised. Puss tells Kitty his origin story and how he felt betrayed by Humpty, who tricked Puss into committing a bank robbery in his hometown of San Ricardo. Puss has been on the run ever since. Humpty eventually convinces Puss to join them in finding the beans and retrieving the golden eggs, although Puss only accepts so he can pay the debt he owns to San Ricardo because of Humpty.

Puss and Kitty's relationship turns romantic and, despite Puss' initial grudge against Humpty, he slowly warms up to him, as the trio steals the beans from Jack and Jill and plants them in the desert. They ride the beanstalk into the clouds and enter the giant's castle, where Humpty reveals to Puss that the giant died a long time ago. They must still avoid the Great Terror who guards the golden eggs. They soon realize the golden eggs are too heavy, and decide to steal the goose's gosling after witnessing it lay miniature golden eggs. They manage to escape the castle and cut down the beanstalk. After celebrating, the group is ambushed by Jack and Jill, and Puss is knocked unconscious.

When he wakes, Puss assumes Humpty and Kitty were kidnapped and tracks Jack and Jill's wagon back to San Ricardo. There, he learns that the kidnapping was staged. Jack, Jill, and Kitty are all working for Humpty, who is seeking revenge against Puss for abandoning him during the failed heist all those years ago. Puss is surrounded by the town's militia and turns himself in following pleas from his adoptive mother Imelda. As Puss is hauled away to prison, Humpty is celebrated as a hero for bringing the wealth of the golden eggs to the townspeople.

Puss meets Andy "Jack" Beanstalk in prison. Jack reveals that Humpty stole the beans from him when they shared a cell years ago, and warns Puss that the Great Terror is the Golden-Egg Goose herself, a gigantic bird who will stop at nothing to rescue her baby. Puss realizes that luring the Great Terror was Humpty's intention all along, hoping to destroy the town in revenge for his imprisonment and flee with the gosling in the chaos. Kitty frees Puss from prison and apologizes, revealing her feelings for him. He locates Humpty in time and convinces him to do the right thing: redeem himself by helping save the town from destruction. Using the gosling as bait, Puss and Humpty are able to lure the Great Terror away from town. With Kitty's help, they also thwart Jack and Jill's attempt to steal the gosling during the chase. As they reach the outskirts of town, Humpty and the gosling are knocked off a collapsing bridge but manage to hang onto a rope that Puss grabs. When it becomes evident that Puss cannot save them both, Humpty sacrifices himself by letting go. After a fatal impact, Puss discovers that Humpty was a large golden egg underneath his shell. The Great Terror is reunited with her gosling, and she takes Humpty's golden egg remains back to the giant's castle.

Despite saving the town and being hailed a hero by the townspeople, Puss is still a fugitive in the eyes of the militia. He reunites with Imelda, who expresses her pride and love for Puss before he flees with Kitty, who playfully steals his boots and runs off. In the epilogue, Jack and Jill are recovering from their injuries, Humpty's spirit is seen, in his normal form wearing a golden egg costume, dancing on the mother's back with the golden goose, and Puss and Kitty finally share a kiss.

Salma Hayek, Antonio Banderas and Puss in Boots at a premiere of the film in Paris.

• Antonio Banderas as Puss in Boots, a cat fugitive from the law trying to restore his reputation as hero of San Ricardo.
• Salma Hayek as Kitty Softpaws, a street-savvy Tuxedo cat who is Puss' female counterpart and love interest.
• Zach Galifianakis as Humpty Alexander Dumpty, the mastermind who intends to retrieve the Golden Eggs from the one-of-a-kind Goose.
• Billy Bob Thornton and Amy Sedaris as Jack and Jill respectively, a murderous outlaw married couple.
• Constance Marie as Imelda, Puss' human adoptive mother
• Mike Mitchell as Andy "Jack" Beanstalk
• Guillermo del Toro as Commandante, the military leader of San Ricardo dispatched to capture Puss
• Chris Miller as Little Boy Blue, Friar Miller, Prison Guard, Manuel and Rafael

The film had been in development since 2004, when Shrek 2 was released.[5] Chris Miller, who worked as head of story in Shrek 2, was a big proponent of making an spin-off film centered on the Puss in Boots due to his love for the character and the intriguing story potential he had, given the adventures he mentions to have had in the film.[6] As a Shrek 2 spin-off, it was initially planned for release in 2008 as a direct-to-video film,[7] then titled Puss in Boots: The Story of an Ogre Killer.[8] By October 2006, the film was re-slated as a theatrical release due to market conditions,[9] and due to DreamWorks Animation's realization that the Puss character deserved more.[10] Miller was hired to direct the film immediately after directing Shrek the Third.[6]

In September 2010, Guillermo del Toro signed on as executive producer.[11] Having exited from The Hobbit, del Toro was invited by the crew to watch an early screening of the film, half animated and half storyboarded, which del Toro loved and asked them if he could be somehow involved in the production.[6] Discussing del Toro, Miller stated: "We worked out a system for him to come in once every few months or whenever we had something new to show him. If we needed someone to bounce ideas off of, he was always there, and if we had a problem we were tackling, we'd get Guillermo on the red phone – our emergency phone – and ask him advice on what we should do with a certain character or scene. It was like having our own film school". Miller stated that del Toro was particularly involved in Humpty's character design. "Guillermo loved the dreamy quality of Humpty Dumpty. He suggested we push that further, make him more like da Vinci".[10] It was del Toro's idea to make Humpty "an ingenious freak of nature" who builds contraptions such as a flying machine.[12] Del Toro rewrote the ending to redeem the character and deepen his relationship with Puss – an unconventional conclusion for a family film.[13] He helped design the fantasy elements of the giant's castle, as well as the architecture of the town, which he conceived as "an amalgam of Spain and Mexico".[12]

During the film's production, the filmmakers struggled for a long time about including the Giant from Jack and the Beanstalk, an English fairy tale from which the magic beans and the castle in the clouds were borrowed from. As the filmmakers had already figured out the Giant's world, the Giant itself was challenging for them. They wanted to depict him faithfully like the classic fairy tale legend giant, but despite how hard they tried to incorporate him into the story, his presence turned out to be predictable. In the end, it was decided to have the Giant killed off offscreen in order to subvert fairy tales expectations.[6]

Antonio Banderas reprised his role as Puss in Boots from the Shrek films. According to Miller, the crew wanted to cast Zach Galifianakis, Billy Bob Thornton, Amy Sedaris and Salma Hayek early on during production. As Humpty Dumpty was Galifianakis' first voiceover role, he was allowed to improvise by the filmmakers. Similarly, Thornton enjoyed the experience of voicing Jack as he was looking to challenge himself with a role out of his comfort zone. Sedaris, with whom Miller had worked before, improvised most of her dialogue as Jill, giving almost fifty different versions of her scripted lines.[6] Except for Puss, the film features new characters. Citing the co-writer, David H. Steinberg, "It doesn't overlap with Shrek at all. Partly that was done to tell an original Puss story, but partly because we didn't know what Shrek 4 were going to do with the characters and we couldn't write conflicting storylines."[14] The film was teased in Shrek Forever After, when Shrek finally shuts the book titled "Shrek", and puts it away next to a book titled "Puss in Boots".

Puss in Boots is the first DreamWorks Animation film that was partly made in India. A Bangalore studio owned by Technicolor, which had mainly worked on TV specials and DVD bonus material, spent six months animating three major scenes in the film. The outsourcing had financial advantages, with 40% less labor costs than in the US, but the primary reason for outsourcing to India was lack of personnel, due to the studio producing as many as three films a year.[15]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[16]

Henry Jackman, the composer for Puss in Boots, utilized folk instruments of traditional Latin music. Inspired by Spanish composer Manuel de Falla, Jackman blended guitars and Latin percussion with an orchestral sound influenced by Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.[17] Mexican guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela contributed to Jackman's score, and two of their songs, "Diablo Rojo" and "Hanuman", were included in the soundtrack.[18] Lady Gaga's song "Americano" was also featured in the film.[19][20] The soundtrack for the film, featuring the original score by Jackman, was released on October 24, 2011, by Sony Classical.[21]

Puss in Boots was originally set for release on November 4, 2011, but was instead pushed a week earlier to October 28, 2011.[22] Anne Globe, head of worldwide marketing for DreamWorks Animation, said the decision to move the film's release date a week earlier was to attract parents and their children to see the film before other family-friendly films were released in November 2011.[23]

The film was renamed Cat in Boots in the United Arab Emirates for officially unknown reasons, but it is suspected for religious and cultural reasons.[24][25] According to the UAE's The National Media Council, which is responsible for censorship, the UAE didn't have any involvement in the rename and that "the decision to change the name had been made by the Hollywood studio and the movie distributors in the UAE."[26] Consequently, since the film's distributor was based in the UAE, the same print was syndicated to all theaters throughout the Middle East. However, the name change was limited to the film's original theatrical run, as merchandise and later regional home media release retained the film's original title.

Puss in Boots had its world premiere on October 16, 2011, docking the Royal Caribbean International's cruise ship Allure of the Seas, docked in Fort Lauderdale, Florida at the time.[27][28] It was theatrically released in the United States on October 28, 2011.[28] The film was digitally re-mastered into IMAX 3D, and was released in 268 North American IMAX theaters and at least 47 IMAX theaters outside North America.[29]

• Puss in Boots, a video game based on the film, developed by Blitz Games, and published by THQ on October 25, 2011 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, and Nintendo DS.[101] It features support for Kinect and PlayStation Move on the respective platforms.[102]
• Fruit Ninja: Puss in Boots, a Puss in Boots-themed Fruit Ninja video game, which was released on October 20, 2011, on the iOS App Store,[103] and was released for Android devices on November 28, 2011, on the Amazon Appstore.[104]

• Official website
• Puss in Boots at IMDb
• Puss in Boots at The Big Cartoon DataBase