Puss in Boots

Loved it! I wasn’t sure this movie was going to be any good.  You can never tell with spin-offs, they often seem like unnecessary and lazy attempts to make more money off the success of a legitimately good film.  But “Puss in Boots” was certainly not lacking in quality, and though I may have sat down with an “eh, might as well watch this” attitude, I walked out singing, toe-tapping and high-clapping praises. Like a flamenco dancer. A feline flamenco dancer, of course.

This story is meant to be a prequel of sorts to the Shrek movies, but it doesn’t feature any of the Shrek characters except Puss. (It’s his backstory.)  It’s predictably fun, incorporating new variations of fairy-tale motifs and characters, and features almost totally positive messages. I absolutely recommend it.

This cat's got swagger.

In the opening sequence, Puss describes himself as “a bad kitty, a fugitive searching for a chance to clear my name.”  Later, we see just how a misunderstanding, a deceitful friend, and Puss’s own naivite and choice to ignore another character’s warnings to “be careful of the company you keep”, (advice that echoes Proverbs 13:20), led to Puss losing “everything that I cared about; my brother, my honor, my home.  All I thought about was the disappointment in my mother’s eyes, and I have been running ever since.”

A reunification with his old partner in crime, Humpty Dumpty, seems to provide Puss with a chance to redeem his mistake, (which resulted in the loss of the townspeople’s money).  The plot involves magic Jack-and-the-Beanstalk beans, with Humpty plotting, “we go up the beanstock outlaws, and we come back legends!”  Of course everything doesn’t work out just exactly according to plan.  Or, there may have been more than one version of the plan, I should say.

Humpty is a pretty rotton character throughout most of the film.  He’s devious, bitter, vengeful, and just plain mean.  Although I feel bad for the way Humpty was bullied and ostracized as a child, I think it’s clear that much of his isolation, especially into adulthood, was of his own making.  He chose to be bitter and unforgiving, and to act selfishly and dishonorably, despite his adoptive mother and best friend/adoptive brother encouraging him to be “better than this!”

The “Mama” character provides a good moral compass for the protagonists of this story.  At one point she tells Puss, who has his sword drawn and is surrounded by the Comandante’s men, “Pequeño!  Do not fight them, please.  No more running.  Please stop breaking my heart, and face what you have done.”  This speech is successful in convincing Puss to surrender, but even while Puss is misbehaving it is clear that Mama carries an unconditional love for him, but that she disapproves of his choices.

Towards the end, after Humpty’s evil schemes have come to light, Puss urges him to help fix the disaster he has created, saying, “It’s never too late to do the right thing!”  This is a terrific message!  It makes me think of Samson, who after all his mistakes asks God to grant him undeserved strength one last time.

Puss joins forces with Humpty Dumpty on a quest for the magic beans.

***SPOILER ALERT*** When Humpty, at the very end, decides to sacrifice himself so that Puss can save the baby goose and by extension the entire town, because “it’s the right thing to do,” he lets go of the rope they are dangling from.  Puss looks down and sees that amidst his cracked shell there is not a mess of yolk but a solidly golden egg.  “I always knew that you were good inside,” sighs Puss.  The Mother goose scoops the golden egg up with her and flies it and the baby away to their castle in the clouds.  It’s very beautiful and fitting, because when Humpty and the gang are breaking in to the beanstalk land, Humpty cries, “Look at this!  It’s egg paradise!  It’s so beautiful, I feel like I belong here!”  So in a very real sense, what is portrayed in this story is that Humpty changes his heart and his actions, and even though it is after a lifetime of rottenness he is rewarded by being taken to Paradise.  It reminds me of the Parable of the Workers in Matthew 20, where some labor all day and some only an hour, but God can reward everyone with the same price.  None of us deserves heaven, but all of us have the chance to earn admittance, (which can only be by the blood of Jesus Christ), as long as we are breathing.  It’s never too late to do the right thing!  **END SPOILER**

It gets a little confusing at the end, because Puss ends up still being an outlaw, running from the soldiers, even though I thought part of his whole lesson was to face up to the consequences of what he had done instead of running from them?  I mean, granted, it is way more fun to watch Puss and Kitty dance through the credits than it would be to watch Puss sit in jail and await trial during the credits, but still…it’s inconsistent with the main message. (Perhaps the ending is necessary to set up Puss’s eventual meeting up with Shrek and Donkey, in Shrek 2?)  The other bit of content that some might find objectionable in a children’s movie is the way Puss is repeatedly referred to as “a great, great lover of women.  Seriously, it is crazy!” but I think most of those references will go over kids’ heads.
Overall, this was a great film. I really enjoyed it. I saw it twice, and it will definitely be joining my DVD collection.

Puss leaves his mark, just like Zorro. (Ironically, Banderas has also played the role of the masked vigilante on the big screen).

Attack the Block

I heard other movie reviewers and bloggers raving about this film all summer.  When it finally came to my theater, it was only here for a week.  It didn’t get marketed the same way many other films are, so a lot of people who probably would have loved it didn’t know about it.  Well, I’m glad I got the chance to see it, because I loved it!  It is not for everyone, because it’s rated R for some violent death scenes and for language, (but it’s cussing with an accent!  See my dialogue analysis here), but it was different from your typical hero-vs-alien story, and it had one of the best character arcs of the summer.

Fair warning, this review is pretty spoiler-y.  Stop reading now if you don’t want to know what happens.

In the beginning, we see Sam, a young nurse, walking home amidst sidewalk chaos and fireworks (because it’s Guy Fawkes Day).  She is accosted and mugged by a gang of juvenile delinquents, led by the toughest of the little tough guys, Moses.  (I don’t really think he’s comparable to the Biblical Moses figure, except that he leads the group.)  The mugging is interrupted by something falling from the sky and crash-landing into a nearby parked car.  It’s a creature, that claws Moses’ face when he investigates, and then runs off.  Filled with furious anger, Moses leads his gang after alien to exact a violent revenge.

And boy, is it violent.  The boys’ group kill was very reminiscent of Lord of the Flies, the way they all join in and chant around the dead body afterwards.  I was a little shocked by how violent they were, how they were so easily persuaded to join in a murderous act.  But it’s not that much of a stretch for them, growing up on the streets in this neighborhood where strength and violence rule, (as demonstrated by the drug-dealing Hi-Hatz, who perpetually pulls out a gun and spits “this is my block!”).  The boys are pretty proud of themselves, thinking they’ve somehow proven their manhood.  And Moses accepts an invitation by Hi-Hatz to become on of “his” boys and climb that social ladder.  Because that’s legitimately the path he sees as being the most successful.

But then, the boys see more capsules meteoring to earth.  And they rile themselves up to go “killin’ ’em straight up!”, only to find that these new creatures are bigger, fiercer, and more dangerous and deadly than their first extraterrestrial victim.  But before they can make it safely back indoors, Sam identifies the hoodlums and the police arrest Moses, locking him inside their van just before they are conveniently eaten by aliens.  The rest of the gang distract the aliens (with firecrakcers) and free Sam and Moses from the police van.

“Ain’t you gonna thank us for saving your life?” snaps Moses.  “My [effing] hero,” responds a still-angry-about-being-mugged Sam, yet she stays with the gang for the rest of the film (out of necessity).  At one point, a boy spouts logic that he probably learned from watching movies and concedes, well, yeah, we attacked her, but then we saved her, so everything was cool.  “We’re heroes,” he proclaims. Sam’s assessment of the situation is less romantic; “Five of you with knives against one woman?  [Eff] off.”  I liked that this story didn’t gloss over the boys’ faults, and didn’t add to the plethora of films that proclaim past errors can be negated by a noble deed or a grand gesture.

is it safer to stay in the elevator, or make a run for it down the hall?

It’s the same message that one of the characters has for Moses, when it becomes clear that the aliens are targeting him:

“You know that little one you killed before?  That was a mistake.  Actions have consequences, y’know?  Everywhere you go bad things happen.  Stay away from us, Moses.”

Eventually, accepting that he is responsible for all the destruction and casualties that the results of his actions led to, Moses prepares to embark on a last-ditch, suicidal solo mission to save what’s left of his friends, as well as the innocents in the neighborhood at large.  He has experienced and learned enough in the last hour to look back at that savage beating of the crash-landed alien in the beginning as a serious mistake;

“Wish I’d never chased after that thing….I killed that thing.  I brought dem in da block.  I’ve gotta finish what we started.”

In the aftermath of the planet-saving, alien-ending explosions, the police catch up with Moses again and re-arrest him.  The friends and neighbors that witnessed the earlier extraterrestrial terrors and Moses’ brave, self-sacrificing final stand and booing the police and chanting for their new hero, but the movie ends with Moses in handcuffs in a police van.  I love this ending, because it’s in keeping with everything else the story had said up to that point–actions have consequences, one good deed doesn’t outweigh a bad one.  And Moses did pull a knife on Sam and rob her, he was trafficking illegal substances, he fled the scene of a crime, etc.  And he still has to account for those actions.  He’s smiling, though, at the recognition from at least a segment of society, that he’s worth something, and it leaves me with a hopeful feeling that he won’t continue to look up to someone like Hi-Hatz as an example of manhood to aspire to.

Moses, the unlikely hero

It’s pretty obvious that another message in this movie is a social commentary on the way poor urban communities are overlooked or negatively stereotyped. It’s implied that Moses and his gang are at least in part products of their environment, neglected, underprivileged, and trapped.  The boys are on the front lines fighting the invading aliens, and their efforts are never overshadowed or overtaken by experienced military or SWAT teams (like you would expect from most alien invasion movies) in part because no-one believes them.  And I guess the chaos that they cause in the neighborhood just isn’t noticed as unusual or unexpected by the outside authorities.  So the old “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” adage applies here, I suppose; you might label someone as a no-good hooligan, but they might be saving your life..from aliens.  Maybe people just need to be given a chance, to show they are capable of rising to greatness, like  Moses.

Overall, this was just a tremendously fun movie to watch.  The storytelling was excellent, the pacing was great, it was alternately suspenseful, emotional, shocking, scary, heart-warming, fist-pumping, and hilarious.  Moses’ maturation in one bizarre night is thrilling and inspiring, and while it doesn’t directly correspond to any Biblical parallels that I can think of, I’d call this a must-watch.  If you’re old enough.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

I liked it! It was entertaining and fun. Being the fourth installment in a series that hasn’t seemed to care much for coherent plot, I didn’t go in with very high expectations.  And what do you know, I wasn’t disappointed!  Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow is as devilishly charming as ever. The plot was silly and cliche, but at least it wasn’t the exact same cliches and jokes that were being recycled in movies 2 and 3.  Or…not as much anyway.  We still get the freakish monkey screaming at the camera, but we don’t have to suffer the buffoonery of tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum (the soldiers, or the one-eyed pirate and his friend).  There’s no I’m-headstrong-and-a-swordfighter Elizabeth and I’m-good-but-a-pirate Will being friends, and then not friends, with Jack.  So it’s fresh, in a sense, although not really original.  The music is pretty much exactly the same as previous films, so don’t buy the soundtrack, but it does it’s job of lending to the atmosphere while you watch the movie, and making it more enjoyable by reminding you of how much you liked the first one, when the music and everything else was wonderfully new and exciting.

The plot is pretty weak; it’s more fun if you don’t think about it too hard. Because really, why would the fountain of youth require a ritual that involves Ponce de Leon’s silver chalices?  It wouldn’t, if the fountain was a real thing, because de Leon didn’t invent it, he just went searching for it.  And why would it require a mermaid’s tear? Why, so we can have mermaids in this movie, of course!  I actually loved the mermaids.  They reminded me of the ones in Peter Pan who will “sweetly drown you if you get too close.”  At first they appear beautiful and innocent, so alluring that one pirate is willing to kiss one even though he’s been warned she’ll drag him underwater and eat his flesh.  “At least I’ll have been kissed by a proper mermaid!” he declares.  But then her angelic singing ceases, and her fangs come out, literally.  And suddenly, confronted with the reality of her deadliness and not the romanticized version, he’s not so willing anymore.  It’s a pretty good metaphor for the destructiveness of sin, which is so easy to justify and sounds so much like it would be ‘worth it’ at the time, but which always, always leads to ruin.

“Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” –James 1:15

There’s actually quite a bit of focus on sin and salvation in this film, although it’s all misguided.  Angelica is focused on saving the soul of her father, the murderous pirate Blackbeard.  To that end, she tries not to let him actually kill people, even though as Captain if he orders it he’s still ultimately responsible.  I guess the thinking is, if the murder isn’t done by his hand, his soul isn’t guilty of the deed.  But that’s not really how it works, is it?  God is more concerned with the intentions of the heart than the outward actions.  Jesus says hate is just as bad as murder, (Matthew 5:21-22), and that even seemingly good deeds, like prayer and giving to charity, if done for the wrong reasons, are not so great (Matthew 6:1-8).

Furthermore, the idea that less sinning will make it easier for his soul to ascend is not Biblical.  The Bible says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23), that salvation is attained only through repentance and acceptance of Christ as Lord, for “there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved,” (Acts 4:12).  Even one sin is enough to condemn him, and Blackbeard isn’t the least bit repentant.  After his demise, Angelica screams that Jack has thwarted her attempts to save her father’s soul, to which he replies, “Your father saved you, perhaps his soul is now redeemed.”  But he didn’t save her on purpose, he thought he was saving himself.  Selfish to the end.  And as stated, that’s not how souls are ‘redeemed’, anyway.  Sorry, Angelica, but Jack doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  This is the same deviant who toyed with conversion on an ‘as needed’ basis earlier in the film, saying he was “willing to believe whatever he needed, to should to situation arise” or some such.  But you should know better, if you were really about to take your vows to become a nun before Jack seduced you.  Tsk tsk.

On to my new favorite ‘Pirates’ character: the missionary, Philip.  I loved his character, even though he apparently didn’t go a very good seminary, (if any).  He says (correctly) that there is always hope for any soul to be saved, but then editorializes (unbiblicaly) that he doubts it in Blackbeard’s case.  Even though I just spent a paragraph arguing that Blackbeard was ultimately not saved, it isn’t because he didn’t have a chance, and a minister (or any person) should never presume to give up on someone.  God doesn’t.  As long as they are alive we should hope and pray for their salvation.  Then, Philip tells the mermaid that she must be “one of God’s creatures”, and not descendant from those damned beings that weren’t on Noah’s ark.  Say what?  Firstly, all creatures on and off Noah’s ark were ‘God’s creatures,’ since he created everything.  Secondly, mermaids, if real, wouldn’t have been on the ark anyway since they could easily survive a flood along with all the other sea-dwellers.  But I appreciate his sentiment–that she’s a person, essentially, and that it’s wrong to mistreat her.

That’s why he’s my favorite–he’s so good.  (And cute!)  He has pure intentions, and he really tries to act Christlike, he doesn’t just preach, and he’s not concerned with his own welfare over his convictions.  When the mutinous pirates ask, before they cut him down, if he’s for them or against them, he doesn’t say that he’s for them so that he can get off the mast he’s been tied to for days.  He says, “I’m neither for you nor against you,” because his allegiance lies with God.  (This is a position I wish more American churches would take, instead of becoming enmeshed in politics!!!)  When the mermaid’s tank crashes and she becomes human (a la Ariel), he immediately gives her his shirt to cover her nakedness and helps carry her when she cannot walk, and I just kept thinking that some who call themselves Christians would have been offended by her nudity and gossiped and gasped and had a general outcry at the indecency of a minister holding a half-naked girl to his chest.  But Philip isn’t caught up in these distractions, he’s focused on the most important thing, which is helping someone in need.  I might be making a straw man’s argument here with my imaginary so-called Christians, but to me in this scenario he is reminiscent of the good Samaritan.

I was a little disappointed by the romantic development between my Philip and the mermaid, (Serena, I think he named her), because I was afraid he was going to somehow betray his convictions, for love, when he was so stalwart before.  In the end I don’t think he did, but I’m not sure because I don’t know what the heck happened to him.  Did he die, was he dying anyway, is it a mercy drowning, is she taking him to the fountain, if so is she going to sacrifice her life for his?!?!?!  That was perhaps the most unsatisfying subplot ending I have ever seen, especially since I was so invested in his character by that point.  I wouldn’t really mind if he died, if it was a good death; I just want to know what happened!  There had better be a deleted scene explaining that.

Another time, maybe I’ll write about why we all love Captain Jack Sparrow, and whether or not that’s a good thing.  (Good Blackbeard quote, to Jack: “Your words surround you like fog and make you hard to see.”)  But this is already too long, so, “ride hard between wind and tide!”

Philip, my favorite.