Puss in Boots: The Last Wish 2022
I had heard good things about this long awaited sequel from Dreamworks. I had liked the first movie, so I was happy to see this one at the theater. The movie starts off strong right off the bat, showing Puss in full swagger, capable of any act of derring do. But soon he has to confront mortality, making him re-examine his life and maybe adjust his priorities. That makes for some good character development, some depth, and some comic relief. Antonio Banderas is able to crank up the gravitas when necessary, but can also do the swagger. There are also some good side characters, old and mostly new, including a happy-go-lucky chihuahua. Like a lot of Shrek movies, there are appearances from other fairy tales like Goldilocks and the three bears as well as a grown up Little Jack Horner as one of the main villains (voiced by John Mulaney). There is also a big bad wolf of sorts as the Grim Reaper. He is a little scary for the littlest kids, with people saying maybe 7 or 8 year olds won’t be overly frightened. But for me it was just another well done character. The bears (as cockney criminals, which seems stale) and Jack Horner weren’t my favorites, but some good writing and solid voice acting helps the bears (Olivia Colman and Ray Winstone). One of my only complaints is they brought in a Spider-verse director to zazz things up, so during action scenes the characters revert to a flat comic book look that looked to me like they ran out of money to fully render the computer animated characters. It was easy to notice and a little jarring for characters to look one way for 95% of the movie and a different way during big fights and chases, but apparently was a design choice. So it just misses an A for me, but still eclipses anything Disney or Pixar could come up with this year, though I will say that the introspective Puss does harken back to the mid-life crisis Woody had in Toy Story 4, one of my favorites.
Written: 24 Dec 2022
Owned on: UHD, Blu-ray, Digital