For the past couple of years, I have been a bit of a stranger to the ‘Puss in Boots’ series. Even though these spin-offs are an outstanding addition to the already amazing series that is ‘Shrek’, it has been several years since I watched the first installment. Lucky for me, the most recent installment in the series, ‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’ came out not too long ago. Myself and some friends watched it the other night, and holy cow, it blew me out of the water!
Full disclosure, I didn’t have very high expectations going into it. I feel that a lot of media companies don’t have great track records when it comes to making good sequels or continuations to a long-running series. It seemed like they just wanted to milk a cash cow that had been long since drained. However, when it comes to Dreamworks, they don’t play around when it comes to making a good sequel. This movie was really, really good, I cannot give it enough praise. Disney, take notes. This is how you make a good movie.
First of all, we have to talk about the animation. Dreamworks has always been known for pushing the boundaries of animation, and has always been a couple years ahead of their time. This movie is no deviation from that trend, and they use a lot of little tricks to really make it look different from their competition. The animation’s frame rate shifts from 12 to 24 frames per second throughout the film, giving it a very distinct feel then some others. A similar stylized animation style was used in the hit 2018 film ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse’. Being able to recognise this animation style the first time watching it was really cool, and it gives this movie a really unique vibe.
On top of just the frame rate, the choreographing of certain scenes was absolutely brilliant, notably most of the fight scenes. Fights are really hard to choreograph while making it look realistic, especially when there are multiple parties involved, as there often are in this film’s fight scenes. The way Dreamworks allows the character models to move in very complicated ways is incredibly hard to do without losing some of the immersion. However, they pulled it off magnificently, allowing for incredibly detailed and complex fight scenes that came out really clean. The characters move in such fluid ways that it almost looks like they’re dancing at times, especially the fight scenes with the main antagonist, which I will not disclose for those who have not watched the film.
Which then brings me to the plot: overall, I thought it was one of the weaker elements of the movie, but by no means was it bad. The story focuses on the titular Puss In Boots as he is forced to abandon his daring and heroic lifestyle because he loses his eighth life. The legend goes that cats have nine lives, so with only one more to go, he can no longer live with the same recklessness then he did in the past. Despite his carefulness, he ends up getting into spots of trouble with enemies old and new. However, when he learns of a wishing star that can grant any wish, he leaps into action trying to get ahold of this wish to restore his nine lives. As he travels to the wishing star, barely avoiding scrapes with Death, he looks back on his old lives and starts to realize how much life should be valued.
Overall, this movie is pretty incredible, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who likes well-made movies. This movie is available in theaters still, as well as on Amazon Prime.
