Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

In 2011, a Puss in Boots film was made within the same universe as the Shrek franchise. Considering how popular he was in those films, a movie about his swashbuckling adventures sounded like a good idea, but with the passage of time, the film has mostly fallen into obscurity. It wasn’t a bad film by any means; it did well critically, made money at the box office and was even nominated for Best Animated Feature for that year, but it was mostly just forgettable, underwhelming and felt like it only existed because people wanted to bank on the popularity of a character rather than actual potential. With this in mind, everybody was surprised when a sequel film was announced 11 years later named Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. The trailers, visuals and concept looked decent and fun enough, but with both Puss in Boots and the Shrek franchise being gone for so many years, no one was expecting anything from this film. If only we had known. Puss in Boots (voiced again by Antonio Banderas) lavishes in his life of partying and wild death-defying antics that brings him incredible adoration from the public, however this lifestyle is quickly challenged when he discovers that he has lost eight of his nine lives and is now on his last . Now with the fear of death stained into him, especially after a deadly encounter with a black-hooded Wolf bounty hunter (voiced by Wagner Moura), he submits to retirement and expects to waste away his last life until he discovers the existence of ‘’The Wishing Star’’ which has the power to give him back his nine lives. On his journey, he is accompanied by his old love interest, Kitty (voiced by Selma Hayek Pinault) who also wants the wish for herself, and Perrito (voiced by Harvey Guillén), a therapy dog who has grown attached to Puss due to lacking his own friend group, and the three must reach the star while also being chased by Goldilocks (voiced by Florence Pugh) and the Three Bears (voiced by Ray Winstone, Olivia Colman and Samson Kayo), a feared pastry chef crime lord called ‘’Big’’ Jack Horner (voiced by John Mulaney) and the Wolf who wishes for nothing more to rid Puss of his last life. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is not only one of the best things attached to the Shrek universe, but it’s also one of DreamWorks’ finest films in years.

This film, despite what would be believed, took several years to make after a production hell, and multiple changes to the director and writers caused it to take almost a decade to come to fruition. Despite how much praise this film has been showered in by both casual audiences and critics, its not strange to see that not everybody was flocking to see this film when it was announced. While it looked fun enough, it didn’t showcase the fantastic qualities that are clearly featured, but the other surprising factor is that it’s not tackling anything that new. While the initial premise for this film is very solid with Puss being down to his last life and trying to find a wishing star in order to get them back (which can work on both a comedic and dramatic level), most of the film actually doesn’t contain that many new surprises or unexpected twists that a movie of this kind wouldn’t offer. The lessons feel expected, the end conclusion is exactly what you’d expect it to be, even most of the characters operate in a manner in which most fairy tale like films and stories would operate like. But what sells this film is its execution and how it takes every opportunity to be funny, creative on a visual level and packed with so much charm and mature enough themes to give that hint more of an edge that was once expected from DreamWorks. This truly is the shining showcase of what this Shrek universe can accomplish; creating fairy tale scenarios that are twisted into this morphed even disturbed portrayal that makes things harsher and more modern, but still unique and contain the same messages said fairy tales would carry. Because of its simple framework yet excellent direction, the movie is both insanely engaging and endearing, but also amazingly captivating and even unexpected in what it decides to talk about and how it goes about telling an otherwise standard lesson. This film switched directors and writers quite a few times throughout its production, but the end results with Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado, who were mostly story artists for other animated films with only a handful of directorial credits under belt. It worked out for the best because they make this film wonderfully paced and constructed in a manner that makes it edgy enough in the humor and respectable enough with the serious moments to work for adults, while still being a kids movie with colorful environments and cartoonish characters.

The characters are wonderfully handled and both new and old cast members are equally as engaging and memorable. Despite Puss and certain other faces that appear in this film having the benefit of more screen time through a previous film, not only do the new characters easily cement themselves as instant iconic roles in this universe, but this is honestly some of the best handling of the Puss in Boots character period. While Puss was always a cool fun role and Antonio Banderas really made him come alive and spark with passion and energy, his character feels much more realized, much better rounded and much more interesting here. His devil-may-care life on the edge lifestyle coming to a halt when he loses his ‘’get out of death’’ free cards and now is haunted by the ever looming threat of death over him which cause him to essential lose his identity is pretty great stuff, and the movie, the animators and Banderas really nail the emotions of every scene whether it be humorous or intense. His support is also very strong; Selma Hayek Pinault does great as Puss foil and taking a decent but relatively unmemorable role from the first film and making her much more likeable this time around, and Perrito as a character could so easily be handled wrong and come across as annoying but with Harvey Guillén’s performance, the animation and design of this dog, and his purpose as a support animal and his tragic backstory really make him work and the crew must be aware of that risk as he is used sparingly and when he is, it is done effective. The antagonists of this film are also really strong and make for great characters that would be cool to see in other projects; making Goldilocks and the Three Bears like a Peaky Blinders British mafia family unit is a lot of fun and all the voice talent is very funny and enjoyable as well as share great chemistry, the wolf is a genuinely disturbing character with his fantastically eerie design, perfectly subtle voice acting and legitimate intimidating presence due to his look, his purpose, Wagner Moura’s voice acting  and his true identity, and John Mulaney is easily the most straightforward of the villains, but he still gets some good funny lines and bits, especially in regard to his literal bucket-full of fairy tale ornaments (there’s a bit involving a Jiminy Cricket with a Jimmy Stewart impression that is almost worth the price of omission alone).

The film is given an art style that is very different from any other Shrek film due to its stylisation over realistic approach. You can tell from the line-work, the expressions, the bright colors and even the manner of the frame-rate that this film is clearly taking inspiration from Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (one of the directors of said film, Bob Persichetti, was originally going to helm this film before being replaced) and that was a good decision, because this is a great looking film and is great looking for different reasons than some of the other DreamWorks films. The other Shrek properties still had creative designs and sometimes had colorful and creative environments, but the focus was on making them look realistic and the Puss in Boots film did the same thing with trying to make Puss look like a real cat to the point where you can count the individual hairs and ruffles on his fur. This film trades that level of detail for a looser style that results in much more high-octane action that really is a marvel to witness. The characters are incredibly expressive now (almost to the point of feeling like an anime), the locations and environments are very vibrant and almost abstract in certain places (that dark forest is a great location to spend the majority of the movie in) and the action allows for a lot of great angles, motions and even camera movement. The film is also incredibly funny when it wants to be as well, helped out by a surprisingly mean sense of humor and even an extreme body count, giving this film that much needed dark edge that DreamWorks hasn’t had for a good long time, but it’s a good kind of darkness. The first Puss in Boots film was weirdly unpleasant and just mean-spirited for no real reason which made it less enjoyable to sit through, whereas here the movie in many respects contains aspects that could be a little intense and creepy for little kids (that wolf is going to give people nightmares, child or adult), but its effective darkness and one that has purpose and weight behind it. This film is just expertly written and despite the screenwriters also not having a ton of great stuff to the names, they really manage to tie this whole story together to make it engaging and timeless, while also being funny, intense and mature in parts and distinctly DreamWorks and distinctly Shrek.

Though the film is easily one of the best of DreamWorks’  line up in a good long time, it took a bit of time for its box office to grow and become a massive hit. People arguably weren’t flooding to see this film due to reasons like the underwhelming first film, the long distance between a Shrek property coming out til now, and the advertising which looked cute, but didn’t showcase the fantastic family film that was actually given. This does its job so well that it actually makes you want more of not only Puss in Boots, but this Shrek universe in general as it opens up just how successful Shrek-like portrayals of classic fairy tales can be and how they can be unique and even messed-up while still staying true to their source material. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is simply magical in every meaning of the word; its engaging, its unique, it has great characters, the writing is stellar, the story is easy to follow but still sprinkles in some fun stuff, the voice actors are great, the animation is incredibly, its very funny but also can be very intense and mature in parts, it has an edge that works for its comedy but also for its drama and how it can be dark in parts (again, THAT WOLF), and when it actually teases another Shrek property, you will actually say ‘‘you want that’’ after seeing this. See for yourself what this little star is hiding and why the legend of Puss in Boots has never been stronger.