The adventures of Shrek the ogre may have come to an end with the fourth installment released last year, but the book hasn't closed on the rest of the characters that populated his world.
Producers seem to have an intense dislike for the finality of "and they lived happily ever after," so in this latest film from DreamWorks Animation, the land of fairytales dishes up the back story of a peripheral feline, Puss in Boots (voiced by Antonio Banderas), who formed part of Shrek's posse.

Obviously, it's a financially promising idea to devote an entire film to this cute and cuddly kitty with the big black eyes, but missed opportunities abound. It seems that the filmmakers, wanting to get this one out of the gate as quickly as possible, forgot their priority should be to make us laugh, at least now and again.

The story's grouping of main characters follows the same formula as Shrek: a protagonist, a love interest and an unlikely best friend. In this case, a cat named Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek) has got Puss, the main character, whipped, and an extended flashback establishes the unusual camaraderie between Puss and his BFF since childhood, Humpty Dumpty, an egg fittingly voiced by Zach Galifianakis.

Set in frontier country at some point in the distant past, as a prequel to the events of the Shrek films, this film is all about Puss and his boots. Although we don't learn that much about him, except that he met Humpty during his time growing up in an orphanage and that they had a falling out, we root for him when he fights the bad guys, of which there are very few, and we smile when he chases a spotlight in the darkness. But that's about it.

Read the full story in The Prague Post.