REVIEW: “Puss In Boots: The Last Wish”

REVIEW: “Puss In Boots: The Last Wish”

January 5th, 2023

Martin Goodman

DreamWorks Animation has found a new sport: outperforming far more costly and heavily promoted Disney movies. As a result, the latest entry, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (PIB2 for the duration of this review), is better, livelier, and far more creative than the tedious and disappointing Disney opus Strange World. One might think this unlikely, considering that the titular character was born from the mediocre Shrek franchise. Still, the charismatic cat has also blown Strange World away at the box office. DreamWorks is simply playing at a different game.

I will begin by discussing the animation method, which will soon become increasingly common. Much of PIB2 is animated in a 2.5D stylized process, which straddles the line between 2 and 3D. 2.5D has evolved from the video game industry and is finding a broader footprint in animated films. The revolutionary Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a representative showpiece. As a simple explanation, 3D objects (or characters) can be projected into 2D environments. Backgrounds and characters can thus be animated differently in the same scene. PIB2 can therefore feature a stylized “storybook” background and have fully 3D characters in the same space. In addition, PIB2 uses 2.5D with other visual tricks, such as dropping frames or slowing/speeding the FPS to produce a choppy, surreal effect.

The story is a variation of the 1966 Sergio Leone film The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly. The film opens with Puss saving his city from a giant ogre. Though triumphant, he is killed when a colossal bell falls on him. Puss awakens only to be told by a doctor that eight of his nine lives have now been extinguished. Puss laughs it off until Death, personified as a hooded wolf, comes looking for life number nine as punishment for wasting the other lives so frivolously. A terrified Puss seeks asylum in the home of the village cat lady Mama Luna. Puss is unwillingly befriended by an adoring Chihuahua who has disguised himself as a cat.

Puss’ hideaway is soon discovered by his old foes Goldilocks and the Three Bears Crime Family. In the ensuing melee, Puss learns of a Wishing Star that fell to Earth. The map to the star will soon be the possession of Big Jack Horner, a vengeful baker with a collection of magical artifacts. Puss renounces his forced retirement and sets off after the map, which can restore all of his lost lives with a single wish. Against his wishes, Perrito the Chihuahua tags along.

Puss is unexpectedly confronted by Kitty Softpaws, his (sometimes) paramour from the original film. She is not in a friendly mood due to some past incident between them. Puss risks his last life to swipe the map, and (without spoilers), the meat of the movie consists of three competing teams fighting over possession of the map en route to the Wishing Star: Puss, Kiity and Perrito, Golilocks and the Three Bears Crime Family, and Big Jack Horner and his cadre of ninja bakers. Everyone involved has a different, desperate wish. Death is also on the trail, stalking Puss with relentless purpose.

The story, of course, takes unexpected turns and reversals and is embellished by some imaginative ideas; The Wishing Star map is an organic construct; whoever holds receives an challenges; the landscape literally transforms when the map changes hands. Puss’ eight previous lives confront him in ther Cave of Lost Souls, where Death catches up to him. A later battle with the Wolf is stunningly done using 2.5D stylized animation. There are a few cameos from Shrek features past. My only quibble is the use of the all-too-common spectacle of the villain blowing up to enormous size and seemingly unstoppable power for the final showdown, a trope I have seen in no less than five films in the past two years.

Summing up, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is an outstanding entry in the Shrek franchise, arguably the best of them. In place of tired in-jokes about popular culture and bodily functions is a rollicking action-adventure flick with a darker subtext about mortality and how a life may best be spent, regardless of whatever follies experienced along the way. Make the last wish count.