Puss in Boots: The Last Wish Review

After an 11-year gap, Puss in Boots gets his second spin-off film with Puss in Boots: The Last Wish which gives the character his most emotional journey.

Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) is a famed and popular hero. When he defeats a giant the famous feline loses his life, leaving him with only one life left. Puss also suffers from a crisis in confidence after an encounter with The Wolf (Wagner Moura), a skilled bounty hunter. However, there’s hope for Puss to get his nine lives back if he finds the Wishing Star. He just needs to get there before Goldilocks (Florence Pugh) and the Three Bears (Ray Winstone, Olivia Colman, and Samson Kayo), and the vicious crime lord Big Jack Horner (John Mulaney).

Since his first appearance in Shrek 2, Puss in Boots has become one of the most popular characters in the Shrek franchise. He appeared in three of the films, the holiday specials, a spin-off film, and an animated series. I had a particular liking for the character since he was a ginger cat. He’s a fun swashbuckler and underestimated since he’s a cute cat. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish could have been a simple cash grab, but it ended up being the best in the franchise.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish saw two major changes to the franchise. The most obvious was the visual style. The Shrek movies, including Puss in Boots (2011) had a fairly realistic art style, whilst Puss in Boots: The Last Wish was more influenced by Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse. The animation and action in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish was similar to the superhero flick. It was bright, colourful, and vibrant: it was great eye candy. The designs of the humans were more cartoony: they looked more like they were from a Disney or Pixar film.

The more important change involved the story. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish aimed to be a more emotionally complicated story. The idea was to make a confident, cocky character and make them face their own morality. Puss’ carefree, reckless actions come back to haunt him. He develops anxiety and some of the film’s best moments were when Puss suffered from panic attacks. The Wolf was a sinister presence and had a chilling whisper. The sequels to How to Train Your Dragon and Kung Fu Panda had moments that could be Pixar’s best and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish can stand with them.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish was an incredibly busy film. It had three factions racing to the Wishing Star, plus the added threat of The Wolf. It meant that there were a lot of characterisations to get through. To do this the creative team followed the old screenwriting adage of characters having something of what they wanted and what they needed. Various characters wanted to make a wish when they needed something else. There was a bit of The Wizard of Oz in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish in its storytelling and themes. A good reference point considering how revered that fantasy classic is.

There were a lot of characters to flesh out and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish managed that. It helped that the characters were split into three groups and interacted amongst themselves. Puss and Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek Pinault) had already been established in previous films so all they needed were film-specific goals. They were teamed up with Perrito the Chihuahua (Harvey Guillén) and he was Puss’ Donkey, a character who tags along for the adventure and irritates the protagonist. Luckily Perrito was so wonderfully earnest that it was endearing.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears were a family unit, and they had the issues that many families have. The added issue was Goldilocks being adopted and wondering what her place in the world was. As a Brit, I did find it entertaining that Goldilocks and the Three Bears spoke like Cockney gangsters.

Big Jack Horner was a ruthless, amoral villain who didn’t care about anyone but himself. Jack Horner had fun interactions with The Ethical Bug (Kevin McCann) since the insect was trying to act as the conscience to a man with no moral compass.

Whilst Puss in Boots: The Last Wish was a busy film with some heavy themes, it was still a humorous adventure film. It started with an entertaining song-and-dance number, and it continued from there. There were plenty of moments where I laughed like Puss in his retirement home, Puss’ interactions with his new partner, and even when a swear word was bleeped out. I normally dislike a film and TV shows that bleep out a swear word for comedy but I was caught off-guard and the word was said so casually.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish was a wonderful film. It was easily one of Dreamworks’ best offerings and showed a film can be funny, action-packed eye candy, and emotionally deep.