Rating: PG | Runtime: 102 minutes
Release Date: December 21st, 2022 (USA)
Studio: DreamWorks Animation / Universal Pictures
Director(s): Joel Crawford / Januel Mercado (co-director)
Writer(s): Paul Fisher & Tommy Swerdlow / Tommy Swerdlow & Tom Wheeler (story)

Fear me if you dare!

Eleven years is a long time to wait for a sequel, but here we are getting Puss in Boots: The Last Wish anyway. I guess you can justify it when you’re talking about a spin-off to what was Dreamworks’ flagship animated franchise—especially with a planned reboot of Shrek also on the docket. You cap your quadrilogy with Puss in Boots in 2011, bide time to ride the How to Train Your Dragon wave, and then dip your toes back into the fairy tale universe housing Far Far Away with a standalone lark first. Give us another adventure with swashbuckling hero Puss in Boots (Antonio’s Banderas) to set the table.

You could say all those years passed for the characters too considering screenwriters Paul Fisher and Tommy Swerdlow position mortality as the central theme of our return. Puss is back at his usual antics dripping in ego and invincibility when he suddenly wakes upon a doctor’s table to learn he’s just lost his eighth life. That means he only has one left—a fact he initially brushes off with a shrug before coming face-to-face with The Big Bad Wolf (Wagner Moura). Is the latter’s bounty hunter truly skilled enough to take Puss down and finally pierce his skin with a blade? Or has all this talk of dying shaken Puss into losing his edge? Either way, retirement seems his sole alternative to oblivion.

Rather than end the story in anonymity, however, Croods: A New Age director Joel Crawford and company introduce the myth of “the last wish.” With Big Jack Horner (John Mulaney), Goldilocks (Florence Pugh) and her Bear Crime Family (Ray Winstone, Olivia Colman, and Samson Kayo), and Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek Pinault) all on its trail, it’s only fitting that Puss would join one last thrill ride in the hopes of wishing his lives back. And while they all crave something they think they need but might already have (save Jack as he’s literally just a self-aware soulless ghoul), along comes little Perrito (Harvey Guillén) wanting for nothing but friendship like all the best dogs do.

It’s a kitchen sink-type, chaotic race through the magical dark forest with life lessons, flashbacks, and the irreverent humor we’ve come to love from this franchise. I could do without the anime-style, herky-jerky fight aesthetic shifting from 3D to a faux-2D perspective, but otherwise enjoyed the animation upgrade. The bear family is auditioning to be Guy Ritchie’s latest band of hapless wannabe thieves, Mulaney is having way too much fun as a psychopathic nursery rhyme (opposite his Jiminy Cricket facsimile “conscience” voiced by a Jimmy Stewart-channeling Kevin McCann), the Wolf lends a legitimate sense of urgency with a dark foreboding and Omar Little whistle, and Puss, Kitty, and Perrito teach us that a life of love beats legend any day.

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(from left) Kitty Soft Paws (Salma Hayek), Perro (Harvey Guillén) and Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) in DreamWorks Animation’s PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH, directed by Joel Crawford. Copyright © 2022 DreamWorks Animation LLC. All Rights Reserved.