User Reviews

"Puss In Boots" was the last of the Cannon Movie Tales produced. Another attempt to elongate a basically simple story, it is graced with a lively performance from Christopher Walken (who still thinks highly of it) as Puss, a straightforward performance from Jason (son of Sean) Connery as the miller's son, and a charming one from Carmela Marner (one of the sisters in Cannon's "Beauty And The Beast") as the princess. Physically, the film looks fine, and the photography is good. The songs, however, go in one ear and out the other, and merely stretch the running time more than necessary. Not one of the better movie tales, but not the worst, either.

I never saw this when I was a kid, so this was seen with fresh eyes. I had never heard of it and rented it for my 5 year old daughter. Plus, the idea of Christopher Walken singing and dancing made me curious. The special fx are cheesy and the singing and dancing is mediocre. But the story is great. My daughter was entranced. I loved watching Walken in this role thinking about what the future held for him. Very amusing to see him dance! And if the songs weren't great, at least they weren't Disney over-produced saccharine sweetness. The ogre scene in the beginning was a little scary for her, and she was a little nervous when we saw him again at the end, but it was mostly benign. Interestingly, we had recently read "Puss in Boots", and I had wondered about the implausibility of the story. But while staying true to almost every aspect, Walken's acting made it believable. Great fun. I'd watch it again with my daughter.

Although none of the nine Cannon Movie Tale films are flawless, with the flaws varying in number and size, all of them are worth a viewing at least once. And while Puss in Boots is one of their lesser outings (with the weakest being The Emperor's New Clothes, and their best being Hansel and Gretel and Beauty and the Beast), it's not an exception.

The best thing about Puss in Boots is the performance of Christopher Walken as Puss, the singing is not the best but he clearly looks as though he's having a whale of a time here and he is so much fun to watch, performing with sly line delivery, a wonderful twitchiness (which is quite appropriate for a cat), fearless bravado and absolutely no signs of being embarrassed either. Carmela Marner is a charming Princess Vera, and has a truly infectious smile, while Yossi Graber is entertainingly buffoonish as the King without resorting to mugging too much. The dialogue does descend into over-silliness sometimes, but is witty and genuinely hilarious, so it would be a lie if I said that I wasn't entertained. The film is nicely photographed, the sets are nice and rustic if somewhat recycled of other Cannon films and the incidental score has the right amount of energy and whimsy.

Puss in Boots has several major problems though. For one thing, apart from the photography and the sets the low budget does show and it is generally one of Cannon's cheaper looking films. Some parts are dimly or gaudily lit and the costumes are garish and seldom flattering, looking like leftover material, but worst of all were the very cheap and out-of-date-looking (even for a film from the 80s) special effects (the Cannon film that fares the worst in this regard), especially the cat transformation and the under-sized ogre. While the incidental score is good, Puss in Boots does boast one of Cannon's weakest song scores, with only those for The Emperor's New Clothes being worse. The songs here are forgettable at best, some also go on for too long- feeling more like padding than anything else- and some of the lyrics are so dreadfully silly that they're enough to make one cringe, like the rhyming lyrics in the song offering marriage advice.

With the story, the basic details and characters are here but they didn't feel quite enough to sustain a feature length film, padding it out with forgettable and sometimes overlong songs and scenes that got too silly (i.e. the ineptitude of the guards), the silliness while entertaining did get too much at times and undermined the darker moments like the scene with Puss and the ogre. With the rest of the performances, most of the rest of the supporting turns mug pretty embarrassingly, the ogre is more unintentionally comical than sinister (coupled with his underwhelming look, he was one disappointing villain) but worst of all was Jason Connery who spends the entire running time looking hopelessly bland and dim-witted and devoid of any charm, his and Marner's chemistry is dull while his and Walken's only just about passes muster because Walken does such a great job here.

All in all, one of Cannon's weakest films but is still watchable for Walken's performance. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Everytime this film is on TV I always watch it! It was one of my favourites when I was young - i loved the songs, the dances and of course the romantic story, not to mention the exciting parts with the ogre. Now I'm older I've realised that musical romance is not the norm for Christopher Walken and Corin, who I wanted to marry, is actually Sean Connery's son! The special effects are quite dated now but nevertheless I still enjoy it! I would recommend it to anyone - children will love it and anyone who associates Christopher Walken with The Deer Hunter, A View to a Kill, Pulp Fiction or True Romance will be in for quite a surprise! It's truly unique!

Corin (Jason, son of Sean Connery) is a poor miller's son. When the old man dies, all that he leaves him is a house cat. The cat appears as human to him, and keeps asking for a pair of boots. Once the cat gets the boots, he become Puss in Boots (Christopher Walken). Through wit and subterfuge, Puss passes Corin off as an important Marquis so that he could marry the princess. Then Puss takes on a ruthless shape shifting ogre who commands a great castle.

Sure this is a weak production. The special effects come from 100 years ago. The costumes and sets are gaudy. Christopher Walken is what makes this stand out. He sings. He dances. He dominates the movie. I wish he had more opportunity to play Puss as a cat. Puss is a bit of a dark character. He lies a lot. And it goes to a really dark place with the ogre. It's a dark little kiddie movie.

Did this movie even happen? Or was it a delirious, hallucinogenic fever dream? It's hard to tell the difference sometimes. Puss in Boots is sweetness personified, but it's so abrasively shoddy and weird that, watching it, it's easy to worry that you're lapsing out of consciousness and sobriety, much like the superimposed shapeshifting ogre and cat who flicker in front of our eyes like oh so many acid flashbacks.

The film is kind of winningly adorable - but in the same way that any train wreck would be adorable if hundreds of kittens sauntered out of the derailed caboose. It's quaintly antiquated, insofar as no self-respecting recent release, even straight-to-DVD ones, would produce a finished product passing itself as a film so wooden, clumsy, and cheap looking (the community centre called - they'd like their cardboard sets and discount Halloween store costumes back, please and thank you. Okay, that was mean. See?! This movie is too cute to properly mock!). Everything is so gloriously stiff that it recalls a Coen Brothers parody, yet its bare-faced earnest wholesomeness grants it a transcendent level of camp hilarity. We can forgive the lurching storyline due to the children's source material. But the snoozy pace, stretching out and plodding along between Puss' machinations to elevate his master from lowly farm hand to sleight-of-hand royalty, is more bedtime story than nursery rhyme.

The musical numbers are so painfully bland and still, that I, at one point, started counting the threads on my couch as I telepathically implored the characters to stop, so I could stop nervously cringe-laughing at them. Meanwhile, the cast performing them - so amateurish one practically wants to hand out participation medals - over or under-act with the wanton inconsistency of a grade school pantomime. Jason Connery (yes, son of THAT Connery) in particular is so outrageously comatose that he practically sets a new low of what has been recorded constituting a performance - toddlers reading story books out low would demonstrate more inflection.

So why the three stars? Three guesses (and the first two don't count). Christopher Walken. He's iconic in the industry for his unique ability to be unbelievably good in unbelievably bad work, and he's never put his talents to such use as he does here. His flamboyant, gallant charisma and flawless song and dance skills bring effervescent life to literature's most famous trickster cat, while his uniquely syncopated delivery makes every line he speaks garrulously hilarious (whether it's always intentional is up for discussion). Even his springy, fidgety physicality uncannily embodies feline twitchiness. Cheerily oblivious to the disaster he's surrounded by, he's clearly having such a ball that it's hard not to share in his fun, and it's solely because of him that the film deserves even a whisper of recognition henceforth.

Puss in Boots is inarguably awful, but it's so gosh-darn likable that taking pot shots at it is the guiltiest kind of derision. Walken works his Walken magic like never before, bounding around in a pirate hat and capturing our hearts. His delightful weirdness is what helps transform this cheap mess into the surreal, camp masterpiece it was destined to be. Still, even the youngest, most forgiving of audiences are likely to dismiss Puss in Boots as distressingly boring, weird, hokey trash. Mee-ouch.

-3/10

When I was a kid I watched this many times over, and I remember whistling the "Happy Cat" song quite often. All the songs are great, and actually memorable, unlike many children's musicals, where the songs are just stuck in for no real reason. The scenes and costumes are lavish, and the acting is very well-done, which isn't surprising, considering the cast. Christopher Walken is very catlike, and doesn't need stupid make-up, or a cat costume for the viewer to believe he's a cat transformed to a human. And Jason Connery's so cute, as the shy and awkward miller's son, Corin, who falls in love with beautiful and the bold Princess Vera. This is a really fun, enjoyable, feature-length movie, where unlike most fairytales, the characters are given personalities. Some of my favourite parts are when Puss makes Corin pretend he's drowning; at the ball when everybody starts dancing a country dance, as it's "all the rage abroad"; when Walken is in the kitchen, dancing on the table (he's a pretty good dancer, too!); and when Vera tells Corin all the things she used to do when she was young, like pretending she was a miller's daughter. I'd recommend this film to children and parents alike, who love magic and fairytales. And it actually IS a movie you can watch together, as it won't drive adults up the wall.

If you fast forward through the horrible singing, you will find a classic fairy tale underneath. Christopher Walken is very humorous and surprisingly good in the role. His trademark style of acting works well for the sly Puss in Boots. The other actors are well for their parts. I did not find any of the acting terribly fake or awkward. The king in particular appears a real dunce though, and I wonder if he is supposed to be. I can not remember the original tale. The special effects are typical of the eighties, but at least they are not overly fake like some of the computer generated fare that we see today. Overall, I recommend this movie for children and adults who are a child at heart.

I thought it was puss and boots the animation but no its a musical with Christopher Walken. He likes musicals but this is a unusual genre for him Bach in the 1980's. He usually plays bad guys but in this one he plays a smart aleck noble magical cat with boots that make him shape shift into a sort of Robin Hood character. A good movie for 7 years olders. But as I am much older this seems outdated as fairy tale. The film's visuals are beautiful they are shot in soft tones befitting the aristocrats of 1770's. Walkan plays a sort of sly cat wanting to elevate his masters station in life as he is just a farm boy so a male Cinderella story. Yeah I agree along with the other reviewers that Walken makes it watchable. But it's boring to me.

This is one of my personal favorite Cannon Movietales because, believe it or not, it's full of great performances. Christopher Walken is a great actor, and who knew he did children's movies? Jason Connery (yes, Sean's son) does a great job too, although he does have a habbit to look a little embarrassed that he's in this. Carmela Marner is lovely as the princess and is (I believe) related to the director Eugene Marner. My rating: **** out of *****

Although this was obviously a low-budget production, the performances and the songs in this movie are worth seeing. One of Walken's few musical roles to date. (he is a marvelous dancer and singer and he demonstrates his acrobatic skills as well - watch for the cartwheel!) Also starring Jason Connery. A great children's story and very likable characters.

all is known. but Christophere Walken change everything. in the most seductive manner. and it is not surprising.the role gives huge chance to explore the different nuances of a generous role. and the only problem could be only this generosity. because Jason Connery seems reduced at a nice sketch of his role and the royal court is far to be credible. but , against not the most inspired parts, it is a nice film. a young man and his cat. a meet. and a lot of adventures. Charles Perrault could be proud about a version of his fairy tale who use the humor as key to explore the different sides of a lovely story. and, in fact, this is only important thing in the case of this film who could be easily criticized if you ignore its small but significant virtues.

I didn't know how badly I needed this movie in my life. An adorable cat, and Christopher Walken singing and speaking (and dancing) as the gentlemanly human form of that cat? Add in the superb production design, art direction, and costume design (not to mention gorgeous filming locations) bringing to vivid life a medieval fairy tale setting, and I'm immediately in love after only a fraction of the runtime has elapsed. It's silly, lighthearted frivolity from the very start, and inescapably charming: 'Puss in Boots' is a delight!

Walken's characteristic comportment and manner of speaking have possibly never been more joyful, and I wonder if he's ever had as much fun as he is here, especially as he adds discrete feline traits into the mix. Everyone else in the cast is having a good time, too, certainly including Jason Connery, Elki Jacobs, Carmela Marner, and Yossi Graber, and from one to the next they likewise demonstrate terrific skill in every necessary capacity (but there's no doubting who the star is). All are so enabled by the remarkable wit and intelligence in Carole Lucia Satrina's screenplay, above all in the endlessly playful dialogue and scene writing - though the characterizations are scarcely a half-step behind in that unremitting sense of merriment. The songs are a real treat, too, in their cheerful chords, to say nothing of Anne Pearson Crosswell's lyrics, or Christine Oren's choreography where a measure of dance is incorporated. Any stunts, practical effects, and instances of action are orchestrated with marvelous finesse; post-production special effects and particular uses of editing are a little less than seamless, yet still fit within the tenor of the production. It's also worth mentioning swell hair and makeup work, and fine cinematography - really, in every regard this is splendidly well made, and director Eugene Marner ties it all together with a gentle but practiced guiding hand.

Sprightly humor is peppered liberally throughout, not just through Walken's role as the title character but in further situational humor, sight gags, and clever quirkiness. The songs themselves are a blast, not least ensemble piece "Genteel" which spotlights Walken, Connery, (Carmela) Marner, and Jacobs trading off lines about expectations of the upper class. To that point, my great commendations to husband-wife and director-writer team (Eugene) Marner and Satrina for sharp editing skills, and the sound department also had their work cut out for them in keeping all the many varied parts tight and balanced, but they nailed it. All this is on top of already ceaseless gaiety and good-natured reverie that permeates the entirety of the feature, and the supreme dexterity of the cast, crew, and filmmakers only cements and accentuates how 'Puss in Boots' is dazzlingly, wonderfully fleet-footed and warmhearted from top to bottom.

One could possibly argue that the narrative is marginally imbalanced as the sands of storytelling shift away for much of the length from the plot that is initially introduced. To Satrina's immense credit, however, every last component is woven together with exquisite grace, and thus do we get a story swirling together adventure, romance, comedy, and fantasy that never, ever loses sight of the beating heart of joviality that keeps the picture going. Yes, it's all simple, straightforward, and rather neat and clean, but such is the nature of fairy tales. So much tremendous hard work went into every last facet of this film, and for as painstaking as the endeavor undeniably was, the viewing experience is fabulously smooth and vibrant across the board. The sum total of all this rich buoyancy and lively spirit, nevermind utmost effort, is an unfailingly gleeful, endearing, entertaining, and satisfying movie, something that surely can be enjoyed by one and all. These 96 minutes pass astoundingly quickly, and from beginning to end every second is momentously glad and inspired. I've watched many titles that were filled with sparks of brilliance, and still this is a stellar gem that outshines many others. What more can I possibly say? 'Puss in Boots' is phenomenal, profoundly underappreciated, and a classic that is truly a must-see. My congratulations to all who participated in this feature's creation, and my highest, heartiest, most enthusiastic recommendation to all comers!

Now don't get me wrong, I loved this movie as a child. I remember even being impressed by the songs "You're looking at a happy cat", and "Go to sleep, my friend", both sung by Christopher Walken. I was even impressed by the singing. I know a LOT better know as an adult, but I still watch the movie. It's terrifying yet wonderul to watch if you're a child, and it's a true classic!

Christopher Walken is such a joy in this movie. Believable as a cat without any extra make up or any especial costumes, and as always what a marvelous dancer! And, wow! That cartwheel he performed in the middle of the movie! Believe he was 45 at the time and he is always a true magic. Moreover, this movie is a proof how skillful and likable he is in the children movies. Wish he'd do it more. As an adult laughed and had a real good time, can't imagine what a gem it would be to the children. Lovely movie.

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My review was written in June 1989 after watching the movie on Warner/Cannon video cassette.

One of the better examples of Cannon's "Movie Tales" feature series of a couple of years back, "Puss in Boots" offers a fine change of pace for Christopher Walken as a song & dance cat.

Jason Connery plays a young man on the road with his inheritance, a tabby cat that turns into human form (Walken) at ill. Cat promises him wealth and success, which Walken proceeds to earn by fooling a king (Yossi Graber) in awarding his daughter's hand to Connery, while appropriating the vast castle and wealth of an ogre (Amnon Meskin).

Briefly released last year theatrically and now a home video title, "Puss" features several fun songs, belted with verve by Walken; Connery is dubbed for his vocals. Sets and other tech credits are okay for this lensed-in-Israel pic.

not the best adaptation. but lovely. because it explores, with grace and precision, humor and great cast, the levels of Perrault's fairy tale, using inspired solutions and wise tricks. its fresh air is the axis. the performance of Christopher Walken - seductive. Jason Connery seems bee the ideal option for the poor Corin. and all seems be at right place. so - no surprises. only a nice story , few songs - not bad, not brilliant - an interesting manner to use the fairy tale in original manner and the ambition of musical moments. the scent of childhood - that it is the fundamental gift to the viewer. and that fact is real a virtue because, after its end, the joy remains for not small time.