Directed by: Chris Miller
Starring: Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Zach Galifianakis
Rating: PG
90 minutes

Well, it was high time for the folks at Dreamworks to cough up another fairytale-themed movie. I mean, gosh, it's been nearly a year and a half since "Shrek Forever After." And since "forever after" has a pretty final sound, the natural solution was to go to the side characters and give us their back stories. First on the lineup is "Puss in Boots," probably because "The Talking Donkey" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

This original story shows Puss (voiced by Antonio Banderas, "The Mask of Zorro") during his early years, as a simple mama's cat, growing up in an orphanage under the care of a benevolent woman whom he just wants to please. As a kid, he falls in with another young boy named Humpty Alexander Dumpty (Zach Galifianakis, "The Hangover"), an ambitious and mildly sinister-looking egg with dreams of finding the famous magic beans that will grow the beanstalk leading to the famed giant's castle. Once there, they plan to steal the golden goose and have an unlimited supply of gold for life. But they never find the beans, instead turning into petty thieves, eventually suffering a painful falling-out.

Now, years later, Puss in Boots, having perfected his suave master-thief persona, receives a tip that Jack and Jill (here portrayed as evil hillbillies) have the magic beans. He goes to steal them but finds, much to his chagrin, that another cat, Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek, "Frida") is after them too. What's more, he discovers, she's allied with Humpty Dumpty. At first he is distraught and wants no part in the theft anymore. But eventually, Puss forms a begrudging alliance with Kitty and Humpty in the hopes of finding the beans, finding the golden goose, and using the gold to help their hometown.

My issue with this movie is not that it's bad–because, really, it isn't. It's just not good, and it doesn't even attempt to be.

The fairytale series of movies has run its course, having become formulaic and losing that sense of novelty that came with the first couple of Shrek movies. "Puss in Boots" lacks surprises of any kind. That being said, director Chris Miller, who directed "Shrek the Third," isn't aiming to be revolutionary. He's trying to entertain kids, and "Puss in Boots" will certainly do that.

The team of writers, almost all new to the franchise, throws in enough action sequences and snappy one-liners to keep the story moving, and, to their credit, the story feels complete and fully thought-out. The problem is that it just feels generic, from the jokes to the plot twists to the requisite Spanish guitar music.

Perhaps the one discovery of this movie is that Zach Galifianakis is one bizarre voice actor. I still can't tell if he was perfect as the good-egg-turned-rotten or if he was terrible, but I'm inclined to think it's the former. Something about Humpty Dumpty instantly makes us suspicious, but at the same time we can tell he's not a completely evil character. Part of that is due to the animation, which is sharp and expressive.

The other part is Galifianakis's vaguely creepy voice, or at least the vague creepiness of his voice superimposed on a children's cartoon character. He simply overshadows the other voice actors; and nothing against Antonio Banderas or Salma Hayek, but it's clear they were cast, first and foremost, because of their Spanish accents.

That isn't to say they were bad. But, like many aspects of this movie, they were ordinary. And when everything about a movie is ordinary, no one remembers it. I saw "Puss in Boots" in the mid-afternoon, and by the evening I had nearly forgotten about it.

Your children may like "Puss in Boots," and you might think it's cute (because all that's needed for something to be deemed "cute" is a couple of cats), but this is no classic, and the people who made this movie know that all too well.

Danny Eisenberg is a 2010 graduate of the Bromfield School and is currently a student at the University of Pennsylvania.