Puss in Boots: The Last Wish Movie Review

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish Movie Review

One of the biggest surprises of 2022 was the sequel to 2011s Puss in Boots, with Puss In Boots: The Last Wish. This film became one of the biggest box office successes of the year, grossing over $500 million worldwide. The film employs a new animation style that blends 2D animation with 3D animation, similar to what DreamWorks Animation have done with their film ‘The Bad Guys’ and Sony Animation with their film ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse’ and its sequel releasing later this year. Puss In Boots may just be DreamWorks Animation’s best work since How to Train Your Dragon 2 in 2014. The film revels in its adult themes, striking animation style and great sense of humour. ‘Puss In Boots: The Last Wish’ follows an ageing Puss, as he is coming to terms with the fact he is on his last life of 9. He is being talked to by Death, which takes the form of a haunting Wolf, with glowing red eyes, whilst racing Jack Horner and Goldilocks and the three bears to find the last wish, which will grant the holder with exactly that, a wish. Puss must team up again with Kitty Softpaws and Perrito to get there first. You already know I love this film, but I am going to tell you why.

The real strength of this film is the use of its adult themes. This is something that is an animation competitor to DreamWorks Animation, Pixar, who have always dealt with mature themes with their content. Puss In Boots deals with the theme of mortality, with our ageing hero coming to terms with the fact that he is young as he used to be. This is humbling, whilst also making the audience realise they’re getting older as well. Puss In Boots has been a part of our lives now since 2004, where he first debuted in Shrek 2. Audiences ageing along with Puss are feeling a lot of the same things he is, which is endearing and automatically allows us to connect with the character, inviting us into his world and along with him on his journey.

Puss In Boots: The Last Wish has some of the best animation I have ever seen, period. The film looks gorgeous, with detailed textures and an anime inspiration for its tense, and dark action set pieces. The blend of traditional 3D animation with anime inspired 2D animation set pieces make for some truly awesome and memorable action set pieces. The character designs are also well realised, with each character being an exaggerated version of classic fairytale characters. I loved Goldie and the three bears. They all had so much personality, part of this was due to the amazing vocal work from Florence Pugh, Ray Winstone, Samson Koyo and Olivia Coleman but largely this was due to the amazing animation of the characters. They all look fantastic!

The story itself is also emotional, containing weighty themes of mortality and the importance of family. These themes are illustrated beautifully through Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado’s terrific direction. They spend time with each of the characters individually and collectively, especially our title character Puss. His arrogance at the start of the film is intolerable and makes the character unlikeable, but as we go on the journey with him, we start to sense his insecurities and see that his tough persona is really a facade of a very lonely man. As the story progresses, we really get to see Puss come out of his shell and reconnect with his love, Kitty Softpaws voiced wonderfully once again by Selma Hayek. The two have amazing chemistry with one another, working together professionally many times before. The connection between the two characters is a high point of the film, making for one of the more memorable duos in recent memory. 

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is fantastic and better than it has any right to be. It’s funny, full of heart and incredibly well crafted. The character of Puss is the best he has been to date and this film makes me very excited to see his appearance in future films. If you’re a Shrek fan, then you need to see this one, there is also a nice little tease before the credits start to roll that will definitely get you excited for what’s to come! ‘Puss In Boots: The Last Wish’ is now available on DVD and Blu-Ray on Sanity’s web store, secure your copy here.

Christopher Pattison from Oz Movie Geek wrote this blog post for Sanity. See more from Chris here