Movie Review: 'Puss In Boots: The Last Wish' Grants Laughter, Heart
LOS ANGELES, Dec. 11 (UPI) -- Puss in Boots. The Last Wish will hit the screens on December 21, a family vacation story. The film continues animation and offers clever new interpretations of fairy-tale characters for children and adults.
The Puss (voiced by Antonio Banderas) loses his eighth life in his latest adventure. To save his ninth life, Cat retires.
But Wisher's message with a last wish prompts the cat to get back to work in hopes of wishing for nine more lives. Kitty Softpaw (Salma Hayek) returns for this adventure and meets many new characters along the way.
Big Jack Horner (John Mullaney) still has his thumb in the pie, but he's become a crime boss and is also looking for a wannabe star. So do Goldie (Florence Pugh) and the Three Bears (Ray Winstone, Olivia Colman, and Samson Kayo), who make a lot of "too, too little, right" jokes.
Puss in Boots is not limited to the Brothers Grimm fairy tales that inspired Shrek . It includes not only characters from Mother Goose, but also Easter eggs from Lewis Carroll, L. From Frank Baum and much more.
The cat itself appeared before the Brothers Grimm, although they also included it in their stories. Contemporary pop culture is also fair game, and a certain niche of viewers will appreciate a special reference to the Nicolas Cage film.
Jack makes a disrespectful joke about his wickedness. After centuries of children's stories, not to mention decades of family films, a villain cannot act one-dimensionally, at least not without commentary.
The cat and kitten are also followed by Perito's dog (Harvey Guillén). Perito's endless optimism in the face of adversity endears him to both the audience and his gruff companions.
Cat lovers will appreciate jokes about litter boxes, sleeping bags and spray bottles. For all its bravado, a cat is still a cat.
Some charts have a dark bar. The editing of Cota's previous eight deaths is absurd enough to make the comedy enjoyable, but Perito's rant about the cruel landlords is more poignant.
However , the last wish has good news. Each character's wish reflects what they feel is missing, and it's clear to the viewer that fulfilling that wish won't solve their problem.
Fortunately, the heroes learned their lesson before it was too late, and it's clear that the villains are punishing themselves for not listening to wisdom.
The animation is inspired by Japanese anime and the stop-motion aesthetic of action scenes. The camera surrounds the action ambitiously, but not too fiercely.
"Piss in shoes. last wish" is one of the first three verse works about Shrek . It may not top Shrek's first two, but it has a lot more going for it than some of the other sequels and spinoffs.
Fred Topel, who attended Ithaca College's film school, is a Los Angeles-based entertainment writer for UPI. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012. Learn more about his work in entertainment.Continue reading
