Puss In Boots: The Last Wish

It’s 18 years since Antonio Banderas’ dashing animated Puss in Boots first appeared on our screens in Shrek 2 – which is 88 cat years. After such a span, one might not expect the fabulous feline to come crashing onto the screen with quite the panache he exhibits here – but then again, cats are said to have nine lives. The problem for puss, as he discovers after his latest bit of derring-do lands him in the mortuary, is that eight of his have already been used up.

The opening is overdone, Wonder Woman 1984-style, but is swiftly followed by a magnificently entertaining scene in which we find out what happened to those other eight lives, setting the bar for the rest of the film. The only thing for Puss to do now, the doctor advises, is go into retirement and try to eke out that last life for as long as he can. The character being inspired by the mariachi films in which Banderas first made his name, there is ample precedent for this, and before long he has buried his iconic costume, grown a long white beard and furrowed his brow in a permanent expression of gloom.

In keeping with that tradition, Puss soon discovers that retirement isn’t easy. There are some dangerous people still on his trail. Hiding out with a cat lady, he acquires a perky, unreasonably loyal companion in the form of Perrito (Harvey Guillén), a small dog who has disguised himself as a cat to get free food, but it’s not long before his is discovered by his sometime true love, sometime arch enemy Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek), and the three of them set out in search of a fallen star which Puss hopes to use to restore his lives.

Of course, nothing is straightforward. Notorious crime gang Goldilocks and the Three Bears (Florence Pugh, Ray Winstone, Olivia Coleman and Samson Kayo) are also after the star, at the behest of scheming villain and pie magnate Big Jack Horner (John Mulaney), whilst Puss is being stalked by Death himself (a big scary wolf voiced by Wagner Moura). What’s more, Kitty is bitter and Puss full of guilt about something that happened in their shared past, and Perrito has no idea what he’s supposed to be doing, though we quickly get the impression that life has always been like that for him.

Where earlier Shrek spin-offs depended heavily on retrodden fairy tales and became more and more self-referential, haemorrhaging energy, this one is a real return to form, a fully developed story in its own right. There are no plot points which newcomers to the franchise will be unable to grasp, and although it’s too long for really young children to sit through in one go, there’s humour suitable for all age groups.

Entertaining use is made of the idea of feline reincarnation; there’s a moment when Puss is trapped in a cave with his past lives and it all goes a bit Doctor Who. Both he and Kitty need to get past their egos to rediscover their romance, and the chemistry sizzles between Banderas and Hayek as always. Goldilocks has a lesson to learn about family (Pugh clearly relishes a much more aggressive role than she’s had access to before), and little Perrito has to develop a sense of self worth. In the meantime, there’s lots of adventure, with daring heists, kidnaps and rescues, high speed chases and dangerous stunts – all made more nerve-racking by the knowledge that Puss is on his last life.

By far the strongest entry in Puss’ solo film career, this doesn’t do much to innovate with the quest framework, and it could stand to lose ten minutes in the midsection (such are the woes of middle age), but it knows its audience and plays its hand well. The self-consciousness of earlier entries is gone. There’s a sense that the creators know they can’t spin out the franchise forever, and that they have realised, at this late hour, that what matters is to have fun with what remains.