Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (PG): a movie review by Alex First
Puss in Boots (the voice of Antonio Banderas) first appeared in Shrek 2 in 2004 before showing up again in a couple of other Shrek sequels and then a standalone film in 2011.
Now the swashbuckling adventurer returns and is facing his biggest challenge – losing his sense of fearlessness.
The cat’s death-defying great escapes have become legendary, yet they have come at a cost.
As we all know, a cat has nine lives; unbeknownst to him, Puss has used up eight of them.
It is then that he is visited by the demonic “red eyed” big bad wolf (the voice of Wagner Moura), who is out to kill him off for good.
He is far more powerful than Puss and leaves the latter shaking in his boots (pun fully intended).
His one hope of redemption is to undertake an epic journey into the Black Forest to find the mythical Wishing Star and restore his lost lives.
But that won’t be an easy feat. In fact, far from it.
Puss will have to learn to humble himself and ask for help from his former partner, Kitty Softpaws (vocalised by Salma Hayek Pinault).
The pair will be aided in their cause by a relentlessly cheerful orphan dog, Perrito (Harvey Guillen), who is always looking on the bright side of life.
They face considerable obstacles in the form of other cartoon characters also chasing the holy grail.
I speak of Goldi (as in “Locks” – Florence Pugh) and the Three Bears Crime Family: Momma Bear (Olivia Colman), Papa Bear (Ray Winstone) and Baby Bear (Samson Kayo) and evil incarnate Jack Horner (John Mulaney).
Also featuring in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is Puss’ doctor (the voice of Anthony Mendez).
He is the one who delivers the news to Puss that he is on very shaky ground and directs him to visit Mama Luna (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), who has a soft spot for cats.
It is there that Puss “befriends” Perrito and the grand adventure begins.
The movie is colourful, creative and quite complex in navigating the various “heightened” cartoon characters.
I particularly warmed to Goldi and the three bears and the characterisation of the big bad wolf, scary that he is.
My familiarity with them in their traditional form no doubt served me well (and I dare say the same will be the case with the littlies who will see this film).
“Big” Jack Horner was an interesting choice as the voice of gluttony.
The original English “Little” Jack Horner nursery rhyme was written with greed in mind, so that certainly makes sense.
I am simply not so sure how popular or well-known Horner is to the contemporary generation.
That is not to say that you can’t introduce new or less familiar characters into a franchise, only that Horner didn’t seem to resonate as much as the others in this case.
I should say that I did enjoy the casting of Jiminy Cricket (Kevin McCann) as Horner’s moral guardian.
While I appreciated the setup and general trajectory of the story, I felt it was a little laboured and repetitive in navigating the “challenges” in the Black Forest.
Trimming the offering by making it a tight 90-minuter would have been advantageous.
Still, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish remains fun and fanciful throughout.
Rated PG, it scores a 7 out of 10. Running time 102 minutes
