‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’ Review: Antonio Banderas’ Feline Hero Fights for His (Last) Life in Existential Sequel

More than a decade after “Shrek” prequel/spinoff “Puss in Boots,” the flowery tom cat is as much as his vintage tricks — however has but to satisfy the computer-lively ogre whose birthday birthday celebration he’s destined to crash in “Shrek 2.” As that collection wore on, the “Shrek” franchise took on such a lot of famous aspect characters that with the aid of using the fourth outing, there has been hardly ever room left to swing a cat.

A knee-excessive hero who walks, talks and swashbuckles upright, Puss turned into one of the few tagalongs wealthy sufficient to warrant his personal foundation story. Now, director Joel Crawford (“The Croods: A New Age”) is going dark, bringing the fearless cat head to head together along with his personal mortality. By forcing Puss to ponder his priorities, the sequel greater than justifies its personal existence, at the same time as paving the manner for the way his direction meets the huge inexperienced guy’s.

The stakes can be greater critical this time around, however the movie’s each bit as a laugh as you’d count on from the clever-as-ever group at DreamWorks Animation, which has had a bumpy few years, taking some thing of a again seat to Illumination over at Universal (“Minions” maven Chris Meledandri serves as govt manufacturer here). “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” marks DWA’s first-rate movie when you consider that the “How to Train Your Dragon” trilogy, reflecting a number of the training discovered on that collection, which includes the perception that caricature characters get lots greater exciting if they’re now no longer immortal.

Co-written with the aid of using Paul Fisher and Tommy Swerdlow with charmingly Spanish-decorated communicate throughout, this fairytale-adjoining journey opens with Puss dropping his 8th life. This kitty’s too cocky to recognize it at first, however the metropolis vet offers him a tough recap of his preceding deaths, which makes for a hilarious (for us) and sobering (for Puss) montage of all of the methods his grandiose ego (so flawlessly captured with the aid of using “The Mask of Zorro” big name Antonio Banderas’ voice work) has endangered him until now.

Cartoon cats can stand all varieties of abuse — simply ask Tom, after years of Jerry’s violent shenanigans — however it’s likely first-rate now no longer to check destiny if status in Puss’ shoes, mainly while pursued with the aid of using a huge-terrible-wolf bounty hunter (as Wolf, “Narcos” boss Wagner Moura offers a terrifically menacing turn). Crawford ranges Puss’ first run-in with this reaper like a scene immediately out of a Sergio Leone film, the manner Frank Miller would possibly have drawn it for certainly considered one among his “Daredevil” comics: all robust poses, severe angles and excessive-assessment photograph effects. (Composer Heitor Pereira promises the Morricone-fashion song to match.)

After that dramatic showdown reduces Puss to a quivering scaredy-cat, our hero scampers off to stay with Mama Luna (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), a self-described “cat fancier” whose tom cat-infested domestic usually has room for one greater stray. Desperate and humbled, Puss buries his cavalier hat, cape and boots withinside the backyard and attempts to combination in, assembly a anonymous mutt in kitty hide amongst Mama Luna’s 3 dozen or so rescues.

The film maintains piling on characters because it is going — from Goldi (Florence Pugh) and the Three Bears crime own circle of relatives to good-boy-gone-terrible Jack Horner (John Mulaney) — till such time that the ensemble has swollen to “Shrek”-like levels. But don’t fret! Mother Goose reject Jack Horner makes for a lame villain. But as complex because the plot gets, it’s all grounded with the aid of using characters with definitely described desires, which makes sense, when you consider that they’re all looking for the identical thing: A capturing big name has landed withinside the Dark Forest, and whoever reaches it first is entitled to a want.

Puss wishes his lives again. The others, which includes Puss’ former paramour Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek Pinault), have similarly compelling motives. Only Puss’ mangy dog amigo (Harvey Guillén) appears content material with what he’s got, which you’d higher accept as true with goes to rub off at the others. Still, it takes a pointy script to achieve this in one of these unexpected manner, and that’s greater than maximum toons can want for.

The film feels maximum stimulated in its first half-hour, while Puss get shaken out of his consolation zone, that's followed with the aid of using a big shift in visible fashion for a DreamWorks toon: Eschewing conventional CG codes, manufacturing clothier Nate Wragg goals for an expressionistic storybook feel, without a strains and a fresh rejection of photorealistic detail. Instead of distracting us with how reasonable Puss’ fur follicles appearance, the team embraces a greater painterly technique that also lets in the digital digital digicam to ricochet via area in the course of movement sequences. That identical dynamism turned into a signature of the sooner movie, with its swooping rooftop chases, that appears infinitely higher on this new fashion.

It’s alarming how quick computer-lively toons begin to appearance dated. Most audiences won’t select out up on it, however the person rigs are hugely stepped forward here. In the “Shrek” movies, the shoulders so regularly appeared weird, while this time around, people and animals alike have a miles more and greater convincing variety of postures. Add to that the painterly upgrade, and “Puss” may have paved the manner for an all-new aesthetic while the studio comes to a decision to give “Shrek” a reboot.