Aneesa Wardle
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
"Der gestiefelte Kater" is a small screen movie from 2009 and even if this one will have its 10th anniversary two years from now it is still one of the more recent takes on the famous Puss in Boots story by the Brothers Grimm. This film is one of many German fairy tale films from that time and you will find the names of director Bongartz and writers Bongartz and Bongartz (father and daughter) attached to some other fairy tale movies too like for example "Brave Little Tailor". That one is sadly superior to this one here and I really wasn't impressed at all by this hour we have here. This is especially disappointing because if you take a look at the cast list here you will find many known names like Matschenz, Wiesinger, Tarrach, Ulrich, Kurth and Fedder. And you see I don't mention Roman Knizka really even if he plays the title character, but the moment the actual cat transforms into him, it was all lost. His portrayal that resembles more the unlikely appearance of a smug French nobleman than a cat coming to life was painful to watch to be honest. His wit was never credible and I assume we were supposed to like him, but honestly, I never did one bit and with his amount of screen time, that sure was a negative deal breaker. The other actors hardly had the material to shine, but they still managed to make things even worse and with that I am referring to an early scene in the castle, the one with the partridges, in which Ulrich (and Wiesinger to a lesser extent) joined Knizka in going over the top the most cringeworthy way you could imagine. This is a prime example for acting students on how you should not portray happy surprise and delight. In general, I would say the film's best moments are really only thanks to the decent base material, but the execution for this film was very shoddy from start to finish. I would say only the very biggest fairy tale (film) fans should see it, but maybe it is especially those who shouldn't check it out. So yeah, better skip it and perhaps go for the one instead that I mentioned early on.
