FILM

USA 2011 90 mins Dir: Chris Miller Starring (voices): Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Zach Galifianakis, Billy Bob Thornton, Amy Sedaris

The story so far: 'Shrek' was smart and funny; 'Shrek 2' less smart and less funny, with crappy songs and pop culture references; 'Shrek the Third' was bloody awful, feebly plundering Arthurian legend for inspiration; and 'Shrek Forever After' recovered a bit of lost ground with a faintly desperate alternate timeline reboot. Where next? Why, a modish spin-off origin story, of course. So Antonio Banderas's suave, swordfighting Gato Diablo gets his own movie, whose five (count 'em!) credited writers seem to have been working to two primary imperatives: chuck in as much relentless, perspective-stretching action as possible before the 3D golden goose dries up, and incorporate any spare out-of-copyright fairytales that haven't been exploited so far, including, er, the golden goose.

The result just about gets the job done even if it feels rather bolted together, with an inevitable Zorro in-joke, the usual pointless adult references (enjoy explaining the 'Fight Club' and glaucoma gags to your kids, parents!) and two kitty dance routines cut to Rodrigo y Gabriela foot-tappers ('Diablo Rojo' and 'Hanuman', fact fans). Story-wise, outlaw Puss (Banderas) re-teams with duplicitous bad egg Humpty Alexander Dumpty (Galifianakis), his childhood chum from the orphanage, on a mission to steal the magic beans from murderous outlaws Jack (Thornton) and Jill (Sedaris) so they can bag the goose that lays the golden eggs. Humpty's new sidekick is hot pussy Kitty Softpaws (Hayek, in her fifth collaboration with Banderas), offering the promiscuous tomcat some chaste love interest. There's also the usual big lame DreamWorks animated message about being true to yourself, doing the right thing, prizing friendship over greed, and all that other wholesome guff nobody in Hollywood actually believes. (Robin Askew)

Website www.pussinbootsthemovie.com/

Opens: December 9

Copyright Robin Askew 2011