Warning: This story contains spoilers for “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish”
“Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” has made headlines as a 2023 Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature Film, earning a 95 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Based on the Italian fairytale, “Il gatto con gli stivali,” the DreamWorks Animation movie is the second in the Puss in Boots saga and a part of the “Shrek” cinematic universe. It was released Dec. 21, 2022 and grossed over $300 million at the global box office.
Beginning with the disclaimer “this is a fairytale,” the movie follows the continued exploits of the human-like cat Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas), who is on the last of his nine lives, as he attempts to find the last wish (a magical glowing star) in order to wish for nine more lives.
“The Last Wish” explores the theme of mortality and touches on the topic of anxiety and panic attacks, while still attempting to hold onto the franchise’s action-packed animated children’s film reputation. Because the film was trying to cater to a wider audience, many of the jokes fell a little flat. It felt like the movie was trying too hard to achieve the Pixar effect, appealing to both parents and children, while presenting a moral that’s understandable for all. The action was not too scary for young audiences, as Puss is never in much danger, but the personification of death itself, in the form of the Big Bad Wolf (Wagner Moura), was ominous to say the least. The intended target audience was unclear; the movie felt both too young and too old at the same time.
One of the highlights of the whole film was the art: a modern three-dimensional animation style that effortlessly blends with a two-dimensional hand-drawn and painted storybook style. It felt like a fairytale graphic novel came to life on the screen. At times additional graphics were added that gave it a comic book feel. It seems likely that this art style will be used in other animated films in the future.
Successfully exploring difficult topics was one of the film’s strengths. Hunted by death, Puss is forced to confront the fact that he only has one life left. Puss’s journey throughout “The Last Wish” is clearly intended to be about coming to terms with mortality and how to live the one life that we have. It also provides a space to think about how scary that can be. At one point during the movie, Puss experiences a beautifully depicted panic attack, brought on by his fear of his own mortality (dark I know). He is comforted by his newly acquired dog best friend, Perro (Harvey Guillen), whose goal is to become a therapy dog. The scene is visceral and puts the audience right in the middle of Puss’s panic. Watching Perro comfort his friend and practice his therapy dog skills is heartwarming, leaving some theater-goers with tears in their eyes.
Puss’s other companion on his quest is his former friend and lover Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek). While their relationship is a continuation of a storyline from the original “Puss in Boots” movie, their romance feels unnecessary in a story that primarily features familial and platonic love. It takes away from the impact of the other love in the movie and reduces one of the few female characters to a love interest. This said, their love story is clearly one of mutual respect. The depiction of Kitty is one that feels, at times, molded to a very specific image. She is clearly created to be beautiful, alluring, and tender. Even looking at some of the promotional photos and posters, it is clear that she is not shaped like a cat but a woman trapped inside a tight catsuit. She is partially the byproduct of the character mold that claims to create strong female characters but really creates female characters that appeal to the male gaze. It is worth conceding that she remains a very strong and determined character throughout the movie and has her own story arc.
Some of the major side characters include Goldilocks and the Three Bears, in the form of Goldi (Florence Pugh) and the Three Bears Crime Family. The family is also on the hunt for the invaluable last wish. The found family trope is used effectively to explore the concept of familial love coming in many different forms, but the range of jokes created for them is disappointingly limited. It would be difficult to count how many “too hot, too cold, just right” lines there were in the script for these four characters, but you don’t need to count to know it was not the “just right” amount.
Other fairytale character cameos include Big Jack Horner (John Mulaney) and his many fairy tale objects. Big Jack Horner, from the Little Jack Horner nursery rhyme, is the greedy CEO of a pie empire and an avid magical object collector. From Mary Poppins’s endless carpet bag to Alice in Wonderland’s “eat me” cookie and “drink me” bottle, the sheer number of objects that are references to other stories was fun, if not slightly overdone, and would certainly provide joy to little kids who got all the references. Jack Horner was the embodiment of a one-dimensional villain and seemed to exist only to provide a villain less morally gray and complex than death/the Big Bad Wolf. While it must be acknowledged that at the end of the day this is still a children’s movie, it felt like more could have been done with Jack Horner’s character.
Characters that felt the most well done included the Big Bad Wolf and a Jiminy Cricket-like character: the Ethical Bug (Kevin McCann). The Big Bad Wolf was the perfect choice for the personification of death. Moura’s voice combined with the wolf’s glowing red eyes and eerie whistle effectively communicated how terrifying death is. Sitting on Jack Horner’s shoulder and reacting in horror to the villain’s actions, the Ethical Bug was a joy to watch and had just enough screen time to be funny but not annoying. He provided some of the only enjoyable moments in the Jack Horner dominated scenes.
Awfully dark for a movie about animated cats, “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” successfully explores important topics, continuing to age with its audience, but often falls flat. It may be worth a watch if you have older kids in the family, are a cat-lover, or feel like experiencing some DreamWorks nostalgia, but it isn’t necessarily a movie to go out of your way to see. The overall message is certainly one worth considering as we all think about how to cope with figuring out what to do with our one precious life.