Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

➤ Rated PG
➤ Theaters/streaming
➤ S1 / V3 / L3*

A sequel to a spinoff of a sequel to a storybook mashup—that’s Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. Even though the tricks of the Shrek franchise aren’t new, this latest installment still has a lot to offer fans of the cracked-­fairytale genre.

The swashbuckling Puss in Boots (voiced again by the incomparable Antonio Banderas) finds he’s buckled with a little too much swash. Fairytale cats might have nine lives, but Puss wasted his first eight in a series of ridiculous misadventures. Now afraid of losing his last life, the once dashing feline has become a shadow of his former self.

With help from his sometime-­rival-sometime-love-interest Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek) and a new doggie friend Perrito (Harvey Guillén), Puss goes in search of a wishing star that can restore his lost lives. But a couple of criminal gangs are also after the last wish—Goldie’s (Florence Pugh) Bear Family and Jack Horner’s Baker’s Dozen.

Despite being marketed as a family movie, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish isn’t for everyone. Many younger children won’t care for the scary scenes in which a wolf-like Grim Reaper pursues Puss, and some of the characters die in comically gruesome ways. The film also pushes the boundary of its PG rating with some unfinished expletives and a bleeped-out tirade.

But folks who appreciate the Shrek franchise’s offbeat humor will enjoy Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. The animation is smooth, beautiful, and action-packed. The excellent visuals complement a witty script with a virtuous message. Puss and his friends learn the power of sacrificial love, and many characters in the movie become convicted of their selfishness, learning to be content with what they already have.

*Ratings from kids-in-mind.com, with quantity of sexual (S), violent (V), and foul language (L) content on a 0-10 scale, with 10 high