A spin-off from the Shrek franchise, 2011’s Puss In Boots focuses on the title character. Set years before the events with our favorite ogre in Shrek 2, Puss in Boots (voiced by Antonio Banderas) maintains a reputation as an outlaw bandit.

Puss wants to clear his name so he embarks on a quest that will require the theft of the legendary Golden Goose. Along the way, he recruits seductive Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek) and childhood friend-turned-enemy Humpty Dumpty (Zach Galifianakis) to assist.

In theory, these spin-off movies can work, but in reality, they don’t tend to fare terribly well. Characters designed for supportive purposes like Puss usually boast one notable trait and not much else, factors that force filmmakers to scramble if they want to extend these roles to feature length.

In regard to Puss, the main joke came from the juxtaposition of adorable little kitty and suave swashbuckler. Most of the role’s appeal came from the contrast between Puss’s fluffy appearance and his action hero persona.

While Boots attempts to expand the character, it doesn’t go much of anywhere. The film throws out ample backstory and stabs at exposition, but these feel gratuitous and forced.

Actually, the movie’s opening act works fairly well, as it comes with enough comedy and action to kick off in a fun way. I wouldn’t claim the first segment dazzles, but it shows promise.

Then Boots focuses more on its main plot and the wheels come off the wagon. The presence of an extended flashback to Puss’s kitten-hood becomes the most prominent issue, as it grinds the narrative to a halt.

Does the movie need some exposition connected to the Puss/Dumpty relationship? Sure.

Does it need a long sequence to detail this? Nope, and that makes the story sag, as this overly extended segment saps the movie of its energy.

Boots never recovers. Sure, it attempts a lot of action and verve, but these attempts lack much creativity and feel forced.

It doesn’t help that the whole movie comes across as excessively long. Boots boasts maybe 30 minutes of actual story material, and the film stretches well past its natural running time. We’re eager for the tale to end well before its does.

The actors do fine, though I’d be hard-pressed to name anyone who stands out as memorable. They say their lines with reasonable energy but lack much apparent investment in the roles.

Who can blame them? Puss In Boots lacks any real reason to exist other than as an attempt to churn more money out of the Shrek series, and its absence of creative energy makes it a slow ride.

Trivia note: Constance Marie does the voice for Puss’s foster mother Imelda. Hardcore David Bowie fans will remember her as a dancer on the 1987 Glass Spider Tour.

Puss In Boots appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.35:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. From start to finish, this was a stellar presentation.

Sharpness appeared absolutely immaculate, so no matter how wide the shots became, they always seemed crisp and perfectly detailed. Not the slightest hint of softness ever marred the presentation.

I witnessed no examples of jaggies or shimmering, and I also detected no signs of edge enhancement. As expected, source flaws also remained absent in this clean transfer.

Most of the time, Boots emphasized a reddish orange palette, though it went for a teal impression when the characters dealt with the beanstalk and the castle. These colors came across well and fleshed out as expected.

Black levels also appeared dense and deep, and shadow detail was solid. I felt totally pleased with this terrific presentation.

While not quite as strong as the picture, the Dolby TrueHD 7.1 soundtrack of Boots also seemed positive. . The mix presented a nice soundstage, as the front three channels presented a broad spatial orientation and smooth panning across speakers.

The rear speakers got a nice workout, especially in the various action scenes. These allowed for a fair amount of movement and involvement, all of which created an engrossing soundfield.

Audio quality appeared strong, as dialogue remained distinct and natural and suffered from no signs of edginess or problems related to intelligibility. The score was warm and rich, as the music showed fine dimensionality and dynamics.

The effects also came across as concise and accurate. They presented clean highs and some deep lows, as bass response was consistently tight. All in all, the audio of Boots seemed pretty impressive.

This package includes both 2D and 3D versions of Boots. The picture comments above reflected the 2D edition – how did the 3D compare?

Visuals looked virtually identical. The 3D may’ve been a smidgen softer than its 2D counterpart, but the two seemed very similar.

As for the stereo imaging, the 3D Boots added a terrific sense of depth. It always brought out a nice feeling of immersion, and some scenes – mainly those connected to the beanstalk – managed to really involve the viewer. Throw out the occasional “pop-out” effect and this became a pleasing 3D image.

As we shift to extras, we open with The Animators’ Corner. It offers a picture-in-picture feature that occasionally concentrates on a commentary from director Chris Miller and producers Joe M. Aguilar and Latifa Ouaou.

In addition to their comments, we see art, storyboards/previs and interviews. In the latter domain, we hear from production designer Guillaume Aretos, art director Christian Schellewald, crowd supervisor James Thornton, head of story Bob Persichetti, visual effects supervisor Ken Bielennberg, supervising animator Sean Sexton, head of layout Gil Zimmerman, executive producer Guillermo del Toro, head of effects Amaury Aubel, rigging supervisor Nick Augello, sound designer/supervising sound editor Richard King, and actor Antonio Banderas.

Throughout “Corner”, we get notes about story/characters, various design areas and animation, music, audio, editing, and related domains. “Corner” covers these in a satisfying way that makes it a fine examination of the filmmaking topics.

The disc also supplies a Trivia Track. This gives us basic movie facts along with a “Meow Meter” that keeps track of various feline utterances. It’s not a great text commentary but it comes with a smattering of decent notes.

Along the lines of “MadLibs”, A DreamWorks Fairy Tale lets you create your own rhyme. It offers a mix of choices among characters, locations and actions, all of which eventually to make narratives in the vein of “Jack and Jill”, “Little Boy Blue” or “Humpty Dumpty”. It offers minor fun.

A game, Puss’ Paw Pouncing Challenge forces you to move a cursor around the screen to “capture” laser spots. This becomes clunky and tedious.

A new short, The Three Diablos goes for 13 minutes, five seconds. It gives us a Puss adventure that brings back Antonio Banderas as the lead. “Diablos” becomes a fairly amusing tale.

A featurette called Puff-gect Pairing runs nine minutes, 21 seconds and offers info from Aguilar, Miller, Banderas, Ouaou, and actors Salma Hayek, Zach Galifianakis and Billy Bob Thornton.

“Pairing” looks at cast, characters and performances. It offers a decent glimpse of these topics, especially when we see the actors in the recording booth.

Three Deleted Scenes appear: “Humpty Plots with Jack & Jill” (2:15), “Humpty Repays His Accomplices” (1:20) and “Puss in Boots Fights the Giant” (3:52). All come as story reels, so don’t expect finished animation.

The first two scenes offer some fairly minor character/story bits, but “Giant” brings out more interesting elements. All three come with intros from Ouaou, as she gives us basics about the sequences and why they got the boot.

A featurette called Kitten to Cat goes for 12 minutes, one second. It offers info from Ouaou, Hayek, Wheeler, Thornton, Miller, Banderas, Aguilar, screenwriter Tom Wheeler, producer Aron Warner, Shrek directors Andrew Adamson and Conrad Vernon, choreographer Laura Gorenstein Miller and supervising animator Olivier Staphylas.

“Cat” looks at the Puss character and aspects of his execution. It turns into a fairly good overview.

With Glitter Box Dance Off, choreographer Miller leads a five-minute, one-second reel. We see a demonstration of various dance steps used in the movie. Kids might find this fun.

During the three-minute, 42-second Klepto Kitty, we learn about a “real-life cat burglar”. Apparently a California feline named Dusty regularly steals items around town. This has not direct connection to the movie, but it’s a cute piece.

An unusual extra, Kitty Keyboard presents the option to hear four nursery rhyme songs like “Three Blind Mice”. When selected, we see movie characters and listen to a cat “sing” the tunes. It’s even more annoying than it sounds.

A Fairytale Pop-Up Book comes next and offers four options. These give us basic views of Puss, Kitty, Humpty and Jack and Jill. It’s an innocuous addition.

Kitty Strikes Again offers a visual game in which players need to look at two movie images and determine the differences between them. Meant for kids, these are pretty simple, but the target audience may enjoy “Strikes”.

The disc opens with ads for Madagascar 3 and the “How to Train Your Dragon Arena Spectacular”. Previews includes those clips plus reels for DreamWorks Dragons: The Television Series, The Adventures of Tintin and a Puss in Boots videogame. World of DreamWorks Animation adds more promotional material. No trailer for Puss appears on the disc.

An extension of the Shrek franchise, Puss In Boots fails to capture any magic. It moves at a slow pace and lacks the life and story development it needs to succeed. The Blu-ray boasts excellent picture along with very good audio and a decent array of supplements plus a lively 3D rendition. We get occasional fun from Boots but it wears out its welcome well before it ends.

To rate this film, visit the prior review of PUSS IN BOOTS