Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

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 ...

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. And for the first time in his lives, Puss is terrified, and runs away from a fight. 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). And a hat. 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. 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). 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. [now on Peacock](http://peacocktv.com)) was the first movie in the [Shrek](https://decider.com/movie/shrek/) franchise in more than a decade, and by all means, should be nothing more than forgettable piffle for six-year-olds. 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. 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. [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. He’s drowning his sorrows in a glass of the heaviest cream when a bounty hunter approaches him.