Puss in Boots Review - Prepare to be Mewowed

Puss in Boots is a film that I was very pensive about going in. In that, Shrek 1, and indeed Shrek 2 (in which Puss was introduced), were absolutely brilliant- fun, heartfelt, family adventures -, however, Shrek 3 was awful. It still remains one of the few films that I genuinely hate. It angered and annoyed me that from there they decided to make yet another Shrek film, although at least the 'final chapter' was decent enough; it was indeed rather good. However, DreamWorks had really been pushing it and came close, on a number of times, to ruining the franchise for me, so, I was far from pleased when I heard that DreamWorks were planning a spin-off, my immediate reaction was: just let it die. I was even less pleased when I heard that Chris Miller, co-director of Shrek the Third, was directing the film; he had a hell of a lot of redeeming to do. Fortunately, these fears were allayed during the first five minutes of Puss in Boots, as it was a pretty darn great film.

New Puss in Boots Clip: "He's So Legendary"

Yesterday, DreamWorks released a new clip (above) from their upcoming Shrek spin-off, Puss in Boots. The film, centring around "the most interesting cat in the world", is due out in cinemas on November 4 in the US and on December 9 over here in the U.K. and this new clip shares with us some of Puss's achievements, basically telling us how he's the feline Chuck Norris.

Although I was sceptical about another Shrek film -  even if it is a spin-off - after the dip-in quality from Shrek 1 and 2, I must admit, I'm very excited for Puss in Boots. Also, there's no arguing that there has been a huge increase in DreamWorks' quality of animated film in the past couple of years, with them spawning two of my favourite animated films of all time, How to Train Your Dragon and Kung Fu Panda 2; not forgetting that Shrek 4 was decent enough and Megamind was really fun.

With all this in mind, I have high hopes for Puss in Boots and this great video has me even more excited!

Hey Now, You're Still an All Star!

As of Wendesday of this week (18/05/11), arguably one of the best animated films of all time and certainly one of the best DreamWorks' films, Shrek, is 10 years old. First released in North America on May 18, 2001, the film was the beginning of the signature DreamWorks franchise, spawning 3 sequels and with a spin-off (Puss in Boots) coming out later this year and grossed nearly $3 billion worldwide across all of the films. The original Shrek, now 10 years old, won the very first Best Animated Feature Academy Award, beating out even Pixar's fantastic Monsters, Inc.

Whilst DreamWorks have not always consistently provided such entertainment or depth; Shrek was a fantastic film and, even ten years on, retains its brilliance.

Shrek Forever After Review - It's No Princess, But It's No Ogre Either.

I know this may seem incredibly belated since the film cam out in May, however I only saw Shrek Forever After for the first time yesterday, so I thought I'd best share my thoughts and write up the second full A113Animation Review.

Having not seen the film up until now, I had lots of time to here a very mixed batch of reviews, the general consensus of which seemed to be - whilst no masterpiece - it's a really fun film, well, not to put too fine a point on it; I'll be the judge of that, so enjoy:

Shrek Forever After is the fourth - and supposedly final film - in the franchise that put DreamWorks Animation on the map. Simply put, Shrek 1 was fantastic, one of my favourite animated films of all time, likewise, Shrek 2 was also really, really good... but Shrek the Third was just awful. I literally loathed every single aspect of Shrek the Third, it was stupid, repetitive, boring and annoying, so you can understand why I was sceptical about a fourth Shrek, since it's been a downwards slope since number 1 in 2001. However, (most of) these fears were soon diminished.

Red Carpet Time

It's awards season...

As such, today was the 1st Annual A113Animation Awards Ceremony. A wide range of awards covered all bases in terms of animated films for the past year, it has been a great year for animation, with many good films and a few great ones. However, ultimately, there can be only one winner of the biggest prize we have to offer...

The A113Animation Award for Best Animated Film of 2010 went to...

Toy Story 3!

This really shouldn't come as too big a surprise, Toy Story 3, was a fantastic film, topping nearly every other film this year in terms of depth, originality and genius. However, of note is the huge amount of rethinking that occurred as a result of How to Train Your Dragon; there have been a lot of good animated films this year, like Despicable Me and Megamind, however I was genuinely pleased to find another great film this year, in the form of HTTYD. I really believe that this is DreamWorks' strongest offering since Shrek and it joins Shrek and Kung Fu Panda, as DreamWorks' claim to creating some of the best animated films around. However, it just couldn't topple Toy Story 3, thusly it claims the Oh So Close Award. Pixar continue to impress year by year, but it is a good sign for DreamWorks that they are heading in the right direction - despite 13-18 announced sequels.

Also of note is that, in terms of the People's Choice Award, up until Christmas Eve, Despicable Me was winning. However Despicable Me claims several awards nevertheless: The Breakout Film award, as this film really put newbies Illumination Entertainment on the map, they also claim the Best New Side Character(s) award for the ever adorable Minions.

Here is a breakdown of the awards by film:

• Toy Story 3 - 4
• How to Train Your Dragon - 3
• Despicable Me - 2
• Megamind - 0
• Shrek Forever After - 0

I encourage you to check out the full awards page and to leave your thoughts and personal picks in this posts' comment section. On a side note, my favourite non-animated film of the year was Inception.

Shrek, The Whole Story

DreamWorks animation have recently uploaded the embedded trailer to their YouTube channel, the video advertises the upcoming Shrek The Whole Story Box Set, containing Shrek 1-4 and Donkey's new Christmas Special. Similarly to the recent Shrek Moments videos, the trailer shows little tidbits from all of the films. Despite how I feel Shrek 3 let the franchise down, it looks really fun.

How is Megamind Doing?

DreamWorks Animation's latest feature film, Megamind, was released in the U.S. earlier this month, the film has done very reasonably for itself. Megamind currently holds a 68% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (80% from the Top Critics) and has raked in $136,300,429, bearing in mind it hasn't opened everywhere yet, that's pretty good. It holds the fourth highest opening weekend for an animated film of 2010, behind Toy Story 3, Shrek Forever After and Despicable Me.
Not bad at all.

Update

Megamind's total gross revenue worldwide was $311,656,309, not ground breaking but not to be sniffed at. In comparison, Illumination Entertainment's similarly themed super villain film, Despicable Me, grossed $541,897,970 worldwide. Also, Megamind's final RT score was 72% (78% from Top Critics).