Back in 2011 the Puss In Boots character of the Shrek franchise got a spin-off film all to himself. Most people seemed to think it was good but personally I don’t remember thinking much of it and with each passing year I felt the likelihood of a sequel becoming smaller and smaller. That being said, you can imagine my surprise eleven years later when I started seeing adverts for Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. It was not just happening after such a long gap, but in America (where it was already out) it was getting really good reviews, some even calling it better than the first one. As soon as I heard that, I think I decided that I was going to go and see it and maybe the long wait would be worth it.
The plot concerns Puss In Boots (Antonio Banderas) who has been carrying on with his adventure-filled but careless lifestyle which has resulted in him dying… but in his case he has nine lives. His latest death costs him his eighth, so he tries to give up his life of adventure but is drawn back in when he hears about the ‘wishing star’ which he goes to find, hoping he can use it to get more lives. Along the way he runs into Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek) and a therapy dog named Perrito (Harvey Guillén) while trying to stay one step ahead of Jack Horner ( John Mulaney), Goldilocks and the three bears (Florence Pugh, Ray Winstone, Olivia Colman, and Samson Kayo). While all this is going on, Puss is struggling to come to terms with the fact that in order to survive he will have to give up his way of life, while it also makes him take a look back at how he has spent his life.
The film is going for a much more mature and darker tone than its predecessor and tries to make Puss into something of a complex character with layers to his personality that others are possibly not aware of.
It’s been nearly twenty years since Banderas first voiced Puss in Shrek 2 and I will admit the last time I saw him in a film I thought his voice sounded a little odd. But in a pleasantly strange way, that doesn’t seem to be the case now. Even after all these years he still knows how to play the character. Of course he’s still got the carefree attitude, the Zorro-like mannerisms while occasionally acting like a real cat for comedic effect. He may be older but his charisma and clear enjoyment are clear from the moment he first appears on screen (which comes complete with a song).
As always he works well with Hayek as they have a lot of back and forth dialogue which really helps when nothing is really happening besides talking. Perrito is meant to be the more comically naïve foil to the two others cats, and that’s exactly how Guillén plays him. He’s mildly entertaining but very much a one-joke character and while this can get a little old after a while I think he manages to avoid overstaying his welcome. He does get what I think was the primary joke meant for adults. Then there’s Kevin McCann’s Ethical bug, who is both a parody of Jiminy Cricket and sounds a bit like James Stewart. His only reason to exist seems to be to appear shocked at everything Horner does.
One of the fundamentals of the Shrek universe is how it’s proudly against the traditions of fairy tale stories, especially those that were made into films by Disney during their golden age. Shrek lives to subvert the expectations of people accustomed to Disney fairy tales and in no way is this better reflected here than in the villains – or who the audience is meant to think are the villains. Where would you find Goldilocks and three bears all talking like a group of cockney-accented criminals? Mulaney’s Horner has some of those qualities but to a lesser extent. He’s just a generic fairy tale villain who will do anything to get what he wants. But even with that he is still played in obvious over the top fashion.
On paper this all sounds like another disposable film with fairy tale influences all over it, but thanks again to the subversive nature of the franchise, it makes room for ideas that might feel out of place in a film like this. A big part of the story deals with his morality and how he feels about it. There is a concept of death being brought to life as a wolf (Wagner Moura) who shows up sporadically throughout and is an interesting metaphor. The story is said to have been influenced by films like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. This can be seen during the climax in the focus on the characters, the way they stare at one another while one of them reaches for their weapon, and the way all of them are positioned around a circle. I’m sure film buffs will appreciate that very much.
Eleven years really is a large gap between films, but it does give time for the disciplines of animated filmmaking to have improved and the film’s animation style is both a strength and a weakness. On the one hand it’s very vibrant and colourful but I just can’t escape the fact that it also looks jarring in places. Looking at Puss In Boots on his own, his eyes are very expressive but maybe a little too expressive for their own good. It’s important to remember that animation was in a different place when the first film came out along with the Shrek films. I think part of me may have wished for Puss to look the same as he did before, even if such a move would border on pretending this it was 2004-2011 again, but an attempt would have been appreciated. You especially notice the new animation when Puss does his ‘cute eyes thing’ which is something the animation takes full advantage of. The animation did also remind me of Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse which appears to have been intentional, but I’m not a fan. While I didn’t like how the animation looked on Puss, it does work a little better on the new characters, especially the wolf where you can really see the red glowing in the eyes. There may be ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ moments where the animation looks more like it did in the Shrek films but I guess if it really needed to commit to a certain look, it went with modern all the way instead of ‘charmingly old fashioned’.
Having said all that, there’s was moment involving Puss going to fight a giant monster where the animation does lend itself to a brief but funny moment.
Spin-offs maybe do run the risk of relying a bit too much on their parent franchise, but I don’t think this is a worry here. Shrek, Fiona, and Donkey are in the new DreamWorks ident but do look strange. There are maybe some old characters that I didn’t notice along the way, but for what it’s worth it was a welcome surprise to hear Conrad Vernon voice Gingy again. I wasn’t too bothered about the brief return of Cody Cameron as Pinocchio but no doubt someone somewhere got a kick out of seeing him again.
One area that really can’t be faulted is the pacing. The action moves incredibly fast and never really drags. It does have obligatory slow moments, but they don’t last due to the talented people involved with them. In the end I don’t think I felt that nearly two hours had passed, to the extent that I could have easily sat through a little more.
Which neatly brings me to what felt like a rushed climax and as soon as the threat is gone, the three main heroes steal a boat and go, as Puss says, “to find new adventures and to see some old friends”… just as the camera turns to face a castle and a sign that says ‘Far, Far, Away’ while music that I’m sure is from the first Shrek film is woven into the final moments. I wonder if this was perhaps setting something up for the future.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is not perfect but works well overall. While I can’t really compare it to the first film as I haven’t seen that since it came out, this new one is certainly better than Shrek Forever After which I really didn’t like at all. Maybe something more will be done with Puss In Boots, but it may be another eleven years before we find out.
