Blog 7: Puss in Boots

Over the weekend I saw Puss in Boots with my girlfriend. Seeing as I haven't seen anything else this week it seems like the only real topic I can talk about. In order to stray away from movie appreciation I will delve into what I think the Shrek franchise truly is: a mixture of people we know voicing characters we are already familiar with in fantasy situations with modern day references and problems.

It's a great formula. The most important key to the Shrek series success has been it's accessibility to multiple crowds. Say you know nothing about fairy tales but love the Hollywood elite. Chances are you watched Shrek to hear Eddie Murphy, Mike Myers or Antonio Banderas then. Say you don't know anything about Hollywood but are familiar with a range of Fairy tales. You watched them because you already knew about some of the characters such as the gingerbread man, pinocchio and the three blind mice. Say you are big on popular culture. The godzilla reference in shrek 3 and some of the other references probably brought you back.  Then there is the plot. Hidden beneath the fairy tale esque quest you find that most of what they are doing is pretty mundane, every day life things. Shrek faced the problems of raising kids, finding love, and that feeling of dissatisfaction with life.

Puss in boots shares a lot of these themes, but thankfully strays from the every day lifeism that the later shreks became and instead focused on the adventure that brought such attention to the original Shrek.
Puss in Boots does all the things that make a cartoon watchable and likable. A cast of characters, with the lead role being one with a sad backstory and a real personal change throughout the movie. A villian who we grow to know as a person rather than a cardboard cutout of evil.

So why wasn't it as successful as shrek? Under many other circumstances a movie like this would have been a contender for an award. The answer? or Answers as they may be? It lies in three areas. Upon a little digging I found out that Puss in Boots is currently the highest grossing Halloween release movie at 34 mil, topping SAW III's 33 mil. But there was it's problem. Imagine how much more attention it would have received if it had come out on a normal movie weekend. It is not a Halloween movie, so a lot of people who would have seen it instead went to a Halloween movie. Second is it's lack of anyone big. Zach Galafinakis and Antonio Banderas are the two most recognizable names. Not exactly Eddie Muurphy and Mike Myers. Third, and probably the real reason, is exhaustion. The Shrek franchise is not held in such high esteem as it used too because of the horrendous flick that was Shrek 4. If Puss in Boots came out on the heels of Shrek 3 it would have been much more successful.