There are comic moments that land, and action set pieces that pop, but the overwhelming sensation here is a meditation on the inevitability of death
It’s been 11 years since the last “Puss in Boots” movie, and 12 years since the last proper installment of the original blockbuster “Shrek” movie franchise. So it makes sense that this new kids movie would want to grow up with its former audience. But “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” may have overshot that mark: The latest fairy-tale comedy adventure is all about how living in an old folks’ home is tragic and depressing and only slightly preferable to our inevitable, terrifying deaths.
Unless, of course, you find a wishing star!
Um… yay?
“Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” stars Antonio Banderas as the voice of the titular hero, a feline in fabulous footwear who has had an impressive number of daredevil adventures. At the start of the movie he’s usurped a corrupt governor’s mansion for the purposes of a fabulous populist party — the cake-and-streamers kind, not a political one — and then he wages war against, essentially, Grendel from “Beowulf.” It’s a gigantic giant who’s annoyed by all the hubbub and will stop at nothing to shut his noisy neighbors up.
Director Joel Crawford (“Croods: The New Age”) uses this action-packed opening to establish that the “Shrek” franchise hasn’t lost its sense of whimsy. The film uses modern animation styles popularized by “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” to give the film a less fluid yet sharper aesthetic whenever the danger sets in. It looks for all the world like “The Last Wish” will, if nothing else, be a hoot and a holler, a barrel full of thrilling, fairy-tale laughs.
