Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022)

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022)

 

7/10

Starring

Antonio Banderas

Salma Hayek Pinault

Harvey Guillén

Florence Pugh

Olivia Colman

 

Directed by Joel Crawford

 

Here is a sequel and an addition to the Shrek Franchise that just bleeds new life to the franchise. This sequel is more than a decade after the first animated spin-off. The animation is very cool, the voice acting is captivating and even though the story is one that is easy to guess your way through, the nice acting, story arcs make for a grand journey. The journey makes you ignore the knowledge of knowing the possible ways the animation will end.

The movie has a darker tone than the other animations in the franchise, but it is funny. It is this comedy that makes up for so many things in this animation that will make it fall flat and makes it easy for new watchers to be captivated by characters introduced to us in Shrek 2 (2004) and Puss in Boots (2011).

One of the things I always liked about the Puss in Boots animations is the way it draws its own path away from the franchise, so you can watch it as a solo film and not be asking much questions about the first Puss in Boots or the Shrek franchise. Also, anyone who has seen all the animations in the franchise will notice the references.

As usual the movie is based in a fairy tale world, to which the animation changes the animation style when the plot changes pace. The idea that Puss is struggling with the idea of dying is another arc that address many of the fears of being mortal. How he was able to handle that fear and overcome it was one of the story arcs that this movie focuses. This runs parallel to Puss wanting to steal a map which will take the holder of the map to a wishing star which will grant them one wish. When Puss hears of this when Goldilocks and the Three Bears came looking for Puss to help them steal the map as he was hiding from a black-hooded wolf who wants to kill him. Puss does not know why this wolf is after him, but he knows he has to do with him being on his last of his nine-lives. Now the knowledge of a star which can grant him any wish he wants puts Puss back on track to redeem his ways and get his nine lives back.

Along for the ride is Kitty Softpaws who also wants to obtain the map so she can get to use the wish. The map was obtained by Big Jack Horner who also wants to use the wish.

Fun ride and enjoyable cast, an animation one can see more than once.