Puss in Boots: The Last Wish serves as a sequel to a spinoff. While the first movie was moderately entertaining, this sequel improves on it by providing more humor and better voiceover work from its cast. It’s visually pleasing despite a climax that feels overstuffed.
Antonio Banderas returns as the titular feline who’s become a legend in the fairytale world he lives in. That all changes after he defeats a giant monster, but in the process, he’s hit by a bell and soon discovers he’s on his ninth and final life.
Puss decides to give up his life of adventure and joins a home occupied by a woman who has earned the right to call herself a crazy cat lady. He meets a dog disguised as a cat (Harvey Guillen) who tries to be friends with Puss, but he’s having none of it.
Puss encounters Goldilocks (Florence Pugh) and the Three Bears, and they tell him of a Wishing Star that has the power to give its finder any wish they desire. Puss sees this as his chance to get back his other eight lives. Also searching for the Star is “Big” Jack Horner (John Mulaney), who wants to use it to have all the magic in the world.
Salma Hayek is back as the voice of Kitty Softpaws, who runs into Puss and still holds a grudge against him for leaving her standing at the aisle on their wedding day. She also wants to find the Star.
The movie has sequences of gorgeous animation that look like it came straight out of a storybook. The imagination in this sequel builds on what the first movie offered while giving us some new and much more clever one-liners and sight gags that both kids and adults can appreciate.
At first, I wasn’t sure whether Puss in Boots warranted a follow-up, but I’m glad we got it. It’s a rare second chapter that, as mentioned, builds on the fun rather than rehashing it.
Banderas, Hayek, and the rest of the cast are having a lot of fun with their roles, and the screenplay allows them to do something with their characters as well as the newer ones.
The movie’s weakness is that the climax does play the card of giving us too much action just when we think it’s over and then starts the story up again.
Nevertheless, kids will enjoy it due to its zany characters, raucous humor, and joyful energy. Adults who loved the first one will probably enjoy it for the same reasons.
Grade: A-
(Rated PG for humor, language, action/violence and some scary moments.)
