Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’ on Netflix, a Smart, Hilarious Story of Feline Mortality

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (now on Netflix) was the first movie in the Shrek franchise in more than a decade, and by all means, should be nothing more than forgettable piffle for six-year-olds. But for the first time since Donkey first cracked wise and Shrek first cracked a fart, one of these movies is actually ABOUT something, and reaches a near-Pixar level of substantive achievement to boot. But unlike Pixar, this thoughtful kittycat adventure doesn’t prompt us to weep and dribble snot like mad, which frankly, has been getting a bit old. No, this Puss hits the sweet spot between thoughtful and delightful – something nobody expected in the least.

PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: [WARNING: PENDING EXPOSITION] “This story is a fairy tale…” reads a title card, so I can lead off like so: Once upon a time, an actual star fell from the sky and created a dark, magical forest. And within that star was one wish, to be granted to whoever might find it. [END EXPOSITION] And now, to the adorable-kitten crap: The inimitable Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas, as ever) isn’t just a hero of legend and man-cat if infamy, but a bona-fide celebrity who can walk into a room and sing jaunty tunes and just be his own gigantically egotistical self, then devour the adoration like a wolf to a pile of BBQed sheep. His latest party is interrupted by a giant made of stone and moss and antlers and malevolent whimsy, and upon besting the towering beast with his pointy cutlass and pointier wit, Puss takes a bow and gets his bell rung. By an actual bell. DONG. It fell. And now he’s dead.

But don’t worry! Cats have nine lives, y’know. Puss awakens and the doctor asks him to county how many he’s spent – there was the time with the bulls in Pamplona, and the other time when he cheated while playing poker with dogs, a drunken test of whether cats always land on their feet, etc. They’re adding up. Quickly. So quickly, he’s on his last life. Cue the oh-shit moment. And therefore, Puss pauses for a moment of self-reflection, which is something he really ain’t good at. He’s drowning his sorrows in a glass of the heaviest cream when a bounty hunter approaches him. He’s always got bounty hunters on his butt – blame notoriety and a little ethical compromise for that – but this one’s different. It’s Wolf (Wagner Moura), who appears with red eyes and a hooded cloak and a pair of sickles, and it’s pretty clear who he REALLY is. You know. The Big D. And for the first time in his lives, Puss is terrified, and runs away from a fight.

All this is actually kind of funny in an existential-horror kind of way, and also in a cute-cat-acting-like-a-cute-cat kind of way. I mean, he gets drunk on heavy cream. It’s a balancing act. Anyway, Puss buries his hat and boots – the legend, the whole persona – and R-U-N-N-O-F-Ts to the home of Mama Luna (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), a crazy cat lady who’ll adopt any stray puddy who knocks on her door. She puts mittens and a bell on him and names him Pickles and he’s mortified and depressed and grows a big long beard, but at least he makes a pal in a chihuahua disguised as a cat, nameless but soon to be known as Perrito (Harvey Guillen). This is about when the plot really starts losing its mind, because a crime family consisting of Goldilocks (Florence Pugh) and the Three Bears (Olivia Colman, Ray Winstone and Samson Kayo) wants the bounty for Puss. And this is when the fallen star/wish exposition makes itself relevant, because everyone here decides to quest for it, competitively, and Puss motivation is, he’ll wish for his nine lives back so he can resume being his old self. It ain’t gonna be easy, because Big Jack Horner (John Mulaney) and a bug that looks a lot like Jiminy Cricket (Kevin McCann) and Puss’ old nemesis Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek Pinault) join the fray, making sure this all gets very complicated, much to our delight.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Rango. It reminds me of Rango. And yes, that’s intended to be a compliment. One hell of a compliment.

Performance Worth Watching Hearing: Far too often, celeb voice work in animated films is little more than a marketing tool hoping to lure us into the theater to hear, I dunno, Woody Allen voice an insect or whatever, with underwhelming results. But as the voice of Puss, Banderas has true spirit and character, and gives one of the more lively voiceover performances in recent memory. 

Memorable Dialogue: Wolf confirms our suspicions about his identity: “I don’t mean it metaphorically or rhetorically or poetically or theoretically or in any other fancy way. I’m Death, straight up. And I’ve come for you, Puss in Boots.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: The Last Wish is ingenious in many ways: The character dynamics are richly layered, with Puss and Softpaws’ cynical me-firstisms countered by Perrito’s pure heart; Goldilocks and the Bears’ struggle to find happiness, you know, something that’s not too hot or too cold but just right; and Jack Horner’s concupiscence for power and fairy-tale artifacts, a never-ending desire for more more more that has incurably corrupted him. They all fight over a treasure map to the fallen star that offers everyone a different path through the forest, shifting its physical reality into psyche-traps for all parties – and this is where Puss stares down his mortality and wonders if he truly values who he is, what he’s done and where he’s headed.

Heady stuff? Sure, but not always, and definitely not quite on the nose. Director Joel Crawford and co-director Januel Mercado take pains to make everything accessible to all audiences, a fairy tale with some classical Grimm underpinnings. The script is consistently funny, foregoing the snarky self-skewering that defined the Shrek franchise, swapping it for a more timeless sensibility consisting of whip-cracking one-liners and character-based comedy (although the references are still intact – keep your eyes peeled for nods to T2 and Sergio Leone’s spaghetti Westerns). Slapstick action is present, as ever, but not overdone, executed with crisp visual acumen and a welcome touch of experimentation (decelerated frame rates give it an almost comic-booky feel). 

The film’s callow intelligence can’t be understated. Puss in Boots, infamous for his bloated sense of self-confidence, finds himself neck-deep in the quicksand of an identity crisis. We love the guy, but he needed to be taken down a peg for him to become someone of true depth and character. And so he becomes more than just a joke machine, blossoming into full, actualized personhood. Except he’s a cat. In boots. And a hat. With a little lappy tongue. And who can still do the poor-adorable-kitty thing with his eyes that’ll gooify you in seconds. But now we’re emotionally involved with his psychological well-being, something we surely never, ever thought would happen with a character in a Shrek spinoff. Who knew Puss in Boots could sink his claws in so deep?

Our Call: Surprise! We might just have a perennial classic on our hands here. STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.