Shrek has been absent from cinemas for more than a decade now, however, the heroic efforts of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish to bring back Dreamworks’ Shrekverse should not be understated as this unfancied sequel may just be one of the best animated films released in 2022.
Granted, it’s not just Shrek, like Goldilocks's three bears, many of Dreamworks’ most successful franchises have been hibernating for a while, and yet in a relatively quiet year for animation it’s Puss in Boots that should return the studio to its glory days. With Kung Fu Panda 4 looming on the horizon, what does the Puss in Boots sequel do so well to greatly exceed its run-of-the-mill predecessor? And why is it so important that cinephiles support Puss in Boots: The Last Wish as a signal this is where the industry should move towards to?
Puss In Boots' Main Theme Is Now Death
While the first Puss in Boots could bank on the popularity of Shrek to secure a profitable box office, bringing back Antonio Banderas’ anthropomorphic fairy tale cat was a bit of an odd move. Regardless, the actor’s own near-death experience after suffering a heart attack in 2017 was part of what drove him to reprise his beloved role, calling it “one of the best things that ever happened in my life,” as it gave him a new outlook to judge “things that I thought were important before but weren’t really.”
It’s this very idea, that a person’s perspective, values and what they cherish the most that underline Puss in Boots’ journey throughout the movie, the kind of universal topic that was absent from the light-hearted spirit of the first film. In real life, death is all around us, and communicating that concept to children can often be a challenging task since it’s something little ones are unlikely to ever forget.
In that sense, Puss in Boots coming to terms with the idea that even he, a legend, is now facing the possibility of death, perfectly frames The Last Wish in the same narrative as some of the greatest animated films ever. It’s that anxiety that made Toy Story 3 so spectacular and relatable to adults, as well as kids, but it’s also present in the likes of Bambi, The Iron Giant, Inside Out, Coco and Soul, or even anime greats like Spirited Away and Grave of the Fireflies.
In Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, death is personified by a towering Wolf armed with a pair of sickles, who at times is outright terrifying in his pursuit of the aging feline because this just isn’t a caricature, death is a common enemy for absolutely every moviegoer from the moment they became familiar with it. Of course, barring all existentialist themes, The Last Wish’s presentation is also fantastic as it adopts a very Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse animation style that makes its action scenes more impactful, a trick also employed by Avatar: The Way of Water's high frame rate.
Overall, writing duo Paul Fisher and Tommy Swerdlow get a ton of laughs from the expected movie cat humor, and director Joel Crawford proves his worth by improving another sequel after The Croods: New Age also went a bit unnoticed; whereas Banderas' love for the character can't be denied given his willingness to voice the cat in several languages. Simply put Puss in Boots: The Last Wish offers some of the best animated entertainment out there, especially if limited to the big screen.
The Shift In Animated Films
Over the past couple of years since Bob Chapek took over as Disney CEO, the company started limiting releases of Pixar movies to Disney Plus streaming, a decision that has kept well-liked films from the world's most prestigious animation studio away from movie theaters. That trend, combined with a few misfires from Disney’s own Lightyear or Strange World has meant that many of the best animated movies in recent memory barely get a chance to be enjoyed at a movie theater.
Surely, the success of Minions: The Rise of Gru still reminds studios how massive animated films can be, nevertheless, with genuine gems like Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio or Turning Red being limited to streaming, and endearing movies like Marcel the Shell with Shoes On barely getting any exposition, supporting great animation has never been more important. No matter that anime features like One Piece Film: Red or Demon Slayer are getting bigger, animated blockbusters cannot be allowed to become direct-to-streaming movies.
At the time of writing, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’s worldwide box office is $140.8m on a $90m budget after two weeks, and despite it maybe being close to turning a profit, Dreamworks’ marketing and timing to make it coincide with the juggernaut that is an Avatar sequel leaves a lot to be desired.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is a fun and emotional rollercoaster that’s inventive and uses animation techniques to boost its artistic value, it’s practically everything that an animated movie should be. The critical acclaim it has received so far is not enough, the film deserves attention so that studios get the validation they need to go back to these roots and guarantee proper theatrical releases, even more so in a year when the animated movie experience has left so much to be desired.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is currently available in theaters.