Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Director: Joel Crawford, Universal Pictures.
This December, everyone’s favourite leche-loving, swashbuckling, fear-defying feline returns. For the first time in more than a decade, there’s a new adventure as daring outlaw Puss in Boots discovers that his passion for peril and disregard for safety have taken their toll. Puss has burned through eight of his nine lives, though he has lost count along the way.
However, getting those lives back is what will send Puss in Boots on his grandest quest yet.
Antonio Banderas (The Mask of Zorro) returns as the voice of the notorious PiB as he embarks on an epic journey into the Black Forest to find the mythical Wishing Star and restore his lost lives.
However, as there’s only one life left, Puss will have to humble himself and ask for help from his former partner and nemesis: the captivating Kitty Soft Paws (Salma Hayek, Desperado). In their quest, Puss and Kitty will be aided ― against their better judgment ― by a ratty, chatty, relentlessly cheerful mutt, Perro (Harvey Guillén, What We Do in the Shadows).
Together, the trio of heroes will have to stay one step ahead of Goldilocks (Florence Pugh, Black Widow) and the Three Bears Crime Family, ‘Big’ Jack Horner (Emmy winner John Mulaney, Big Mouth) and terrifying bounty hunter, The Big Bad Wolf (Wagner Moura, Narcos).
The stakes maybe a slightly higher this time round, but the film is as amusing as you’d expect from this clever team of filmmakers. What is also a success factor is Banderas’ silky-voiced take, conveying all of the character’s excessive feline smoothness. There’s also a lesson in there somewhere.
The long-awaited follow-up to the 2011 Academy Award-nominated blockbuster, The Last Wish is directed by Joel Crawford and produced by Mark Swift, the creative team behind DreamWorks Animation’s smash, The Croods: A New Age. The film’s executive producer is Illumination founder and CEO Chris Meledandri.
- Puss in Boots: The Last Wish will open in cinemas on Boxing Day
