Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022)
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Puss in Boots: The Last Wish Movie Review
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is a 2022 animated adventure film directed by Joel Crawford and starring Antonio Banderas. It is a solid, but deeply flawed DreamWorks flick.
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“Cuteness overload!“
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Puss in Boots discovers that his passion for adventure has taken its toll: he has burnt through eight of his nine lives. Puss sets out on an epic journey to find the mythical Last Wish and restore his nine lives. This movie is all about mortality and I myself had to grapple with my own mortality after a recent loss of a family member and the fact that the first ‘Puss in Boots’ movie came out eleven years ago, back when I first religiously started watching movies and reviewing them.
You’d think that the film with all of that emotional baggage of mine would strike me and move me to tears, but not only did it no do that, but it also failed to properly entertain me due to its frenetic pacing and an overreliance on action set pieces. The idea here is superb and children should be familiarized with the concept of death and the importance of living your life to the fullest, but the execution of those ideas is so weak and rushed that ultimately the script felt hugely disappointing to me.
The characters still are great. Puss himself is wonderful and Banderas did a great job voicing him once again. He gets a meaningful, even deep arc and he is as likable as always. Kitty is also solid and their relationship was quite endearing. Perrito is the best new addition as this hilarious dog who is by far the funniest character of the bunch. But all the other creations were less interesting with Goldilocks and her story being only okay and Wolf being a solid, but far from unforgettable villain.
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Where Puss in Boots: The Last Wish excels at is the animation. Unlike the first movie and the entire Shrek franchise, this one has a different visual style to it. Gone is the excessive CGI realism in favor of a more painterly and cartoony look that fitted the fairy tale world of the story like a glove. So much of the film’s imagery is gorgeously composed and very colorful with the character designs being as cute as ever.
The problem, however, lies with the world building. For a film that is so focused on fairy tales and fantasy storytelling, I did not get a sense of imagination or spirited adventure that this story clearly required. It all just felt undercooked due to its excessive action that was fun at times, but mostly overloud and overlong. The film is just terribly edited and paced.
The dialogue is pretty good and the humor can be very enjoyable. There is this sequence where the two cats square off against each other and they deliver cuteness overload with their huge eyes and that was both adorable and hilarious. Unfortunately, the rest of the film barely had any memorable humor as that action overtook any sense of fun or excitement that the movie otherwise could have had. The original was ultimately so much better.
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Coming in after eleven years, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish ultimately turned out quite disappointing. The first movie was one of the best and most underrated DreamWorks flicks, but this one is seriously hurt by its overreliance on action set pieces and frenetic pacing. It had a great concept about mortality, but that barely got explored due to that rushed nature of the script and pacing. The characters are wonderful, the humor can be quite good at times and the animation is gorgeous and uniquely lacking in realism, but the film failed to move me and it really should have done so given its heavy themes.
My Rating – 3.5
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