Puss In Boots: The Three Diablos

So, as you know, i enjoyed the Puss In Boots stand along movie. My wife enjoyed it much more than I did, however, and as one of her birthday presents, I got it for us on DVD. Since it was only a couple of bucks more, I spent the extra money to get the pack with the new "The Three Diablos" DVD short. was it worth the extra money? Well...

In the end I would say it was. It was a fun, funny, short little tale. I've found that Dreamworks' 20-30 minute shorts have been pretty high-quality for the most part, which really surprised me, because usually when companies crank out shorts like this, it's just to cash in on the franchise and they don't bother with quality too much. Well, I'm sure that Dreamworks is just cashing in on the franchise, but they really haven't been skimping on the quality all that much.

Anyway, TTD takes place immediately after the events in the story, where he is captured by the guards of the neighboring kingdom. Instead of being thrown in prison, however, the queen of that land begs him to retrieve the kingdom's (queendom's?) crown jewel, which had been stolen by a French thief named "The Whisperer" (Whisper his name for the full effect.) The only clue as to his whereabouts are his three assistants, who were captured. They are possibly the three cutest and meanest kittens you will ever see outside of real life. As they head out with Puss, it will be seen who learns the most and who teaches the most.

As i said, the short itself is pretty high-quality. It's funny, interesting, and despite only being 11 minutes long, doesn't feel rushed for the first 8 minutes. It feel rushed at the very end, but it ends quickly enough that it doesn't detract too much from the rest of the story. My biggest problem is that it brings up and worsens a couple of issues I had with Puss in Boots, the movie: When does the movie take place? Before or after the Shrek movies? Because part of the conflict is Puss trying to decide if he can be a good guy or if he's doomed to remaining a bad guy forever. He decides that he can be a good guy. but then, why is it in Shrek 2 he seems to be a bad guy? Now, granted, you could argue either way as to what he started out as in Shrek 2, but I read him as being more of a bad guy than a good guy. I mean, hanging out in the seediest of seedy taverns, hanging out with bad guys, and working as a killer-for-hire? Seems pretty shifty to me.

Other than that I do have three little things that bug me:
1. I wish the climactic fight scene had gone on longer. It was actually really cool, and they could have done a lot more with it.
2. The three diablos are kittens, and therefore should be "diablitos".
3. Use of the word "Grazie". Now, I can understand that most Americans do not speak Italian. I also understand the concept of "anglicization of words". However, from an artistic point of view, I cannot condone the abuse of this word. You see, most Americans pronounce this word "grats-ee." However, in Italian it's pronounced "grats-ee-ey." Now, if an American character were saying it, it would be fine, but when supposedly Italian characters, who speak fluent Italian, pronounce it "grats-ee"... we'll that just bugs the heck out of me.

Bottom Line: Despite my nitpicking, The Three Diablos is well worth your time and the few extra bucks it costs to buy it packaged with the Puss In Boots movie. If you plan on buying the Puss In Boots movie, go ahead and get The Three Diablos while you're at it.