Why Puss In Boots 2 earns its Certified Fresh
I guess my thing so far is animated films and art movies?
So for this past Friday Date Night Movie Viewing Experience, in a splurge for my art, I gave Jeff Bezos/Amazon my $30 and “bought” Puss In Boots: The Last Wish on Amazon Prime.
I thought about “RENTING” it for $25, but to “purchase” it on streaming was only five dollars more, so I thought, fuck it, I have a piece in mind to write and get the indie pathos taste of Aftersun out of my mouth, I just gave them my money. Hell, I was ready to see it in a theater and now I can host a viewing party of it whenever I want for the same price, more or less.
Update, Puss In Boots: The Last Wish is now available on “digital”, which I think you means you can rent it for a reasonable price? I wrote this piece a few weeks ago and have been procrastinating on it, but I guess my timing was good for the PR cycle!
—
Puss In Boots: The Last Wish, to my great unsurprised totally earns it’s 95 on Rotten Tomatoes. Which is just an aggregate of how many reviewers said something “positive” about the movie. And it’s hard to think of anything bad to say about Puss In Boots 2! If I had to, just as an exercise (and because my brain is tragically wired to watch every narrative I consume with a screen writer’s mindset) I can clearly see the formula they’re executing on. BUT THE EXECUTION ITSELF is very good with charming performances, delightful animation and solid, relatable story telling.
But first, a quick detour: I sought out some other Puss In Boots media as a comparison point, and to my actual surprise, the first movie is also pretty good! It registers an 86 on Rotten Tomatoes and is an early aughts time capsule where the side characters are voiced by Zach Galifanikas, Amy Sedaris and Billy Bob Thornton respectively, because who else would you use to fill out the ensemble of an animated movie in 2011 but those three, ESPECIALLY Zach Galifanikas who was having his “I’m in everything after the Hangover” moment.
AND there’s a pretty great dance fight set to Rodrigo y Gabriela’s contemporary flamenco jam, “Diablo Rojo”, which is also very 2011 in its own way.
Puss In Boots 1 isn’t streaming free anywhere at the moment, but if you’re inspired to seek out some Antonio Banderas as Cartoon Cat Zorro and don’t want to pay $25, you can rent it for much less (or you could just… “find it” online like I did). The TV show is also on Netflix. It’s probably good if you’re a six year old. Otherwise skip it.
Where was I? Oh yeah, the sequel! Let’s get into it.
But first… my wife’s reaction.
“Perrito is the best. I love him. Do they make a stuffed Perrito? I want it.”
I’m of course simplifying what she said for comedic effect, but she did really like Harvey Guillion as comic sidekick Perrito. Because how can you not?!
Puss In Boots as a series is building on the strength of several VERY SOLID franchises. Shrek, the tongue in cheek animated fairytale comedies going back to when I was a kid (I saw the first Shrek in the theater and liked it a lot). But also, in a meta sense, Antonoio Banderas as Zorro, and him and Salma Hayek as their characters in Robert Rodriguez’s Mexico trilogy. This is not an original observation, I picked it up from a film critic Tik Tokker but I forget which one (I think it was Jason Pargin, the former Cracked.com guy). So we have well defined archetypes, actors who have played variations on these roles across multiple franchises, a pile of Dreamworks animation money and a fun opening musical sequence. And a string of animated hits like Spiderman: Into The Spiderverse that showed an audience appetite for stretching out! Those are some ingredients indeed and they make for a tasty stew.
—
Sidenote: I also tried to watch The Mask of Zorro for this piece and got maybe half way through before I decided there were better things to do with my time. But I could chart a long term family film festival where you show your little kid Shrek and Puss In Boots, they grow a little older and you watch Puss In Boots 2, when they’re like 11 introduce them to 90s Zorro (Anthony Hopkins is pretty great as an older Zorro, he’s in there in case you’d forgotten, I sure did, talk about a 90s time capsule), it’s a pretty good 90s family action movies afterall. And when they're teenagers, maybe they’ll like the Robert Rodriguez movies (El Mariachi will always be a banger, we’ll have to see how Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico hold up into the 2030s, lolol).
—
It’s also worth noting, Puss In Boots: The Last Wish is pretty dark for a kid’s movie. You know, park the kids in front of the TV to show them a meditation on death and mortality, with Narcos’ Wagner Moura embodying Death Itself as the Big Bad Wolf (“Lobo Mal?” asked my Brazilian wife) but also a riff on the Anton Chigurh “unstoppable force of death” archetype popularized by No Country For Old Men (kids sure love homages to Cormac Mccarthy) which is… pretty rad now that I think about it. Not sure how that plays for kiddos. I’ll report back in a few years when we have one and it’s big enough to watch deep cuts from the extended Shrek cinematic universe.
It works so well as a pastiche, because in a weird way, Puss In Boots 2 feels like a dark comedy in the vein of a 2000s Quinten Tarantino or Guy Ritchie knock off. Like Smoking Aces or something, but good. Like clearly these filmmakers and animators have watched both Kill Bill and Snatch and other crime/heist movies with colorful ensemble casts such that those influences come through clearly in the movie. And it’s pretty fun, like a storybook nursery crossover with a 2000s crime movie as they chase (and kill! Lots of death in this movie!) each other in pursuit of the Magical Macguffin.
And what makes it all work emotionally? Puss is afraid of nothing… except Death. He's definitely afraid of and runs away from Death. (And commitment, but thats a separate subplot). And its that fear that sets him and his compatriots on a Jason and the Argonauts-esque Golden Fleece narrative (as coined in Save The Cat) that puts all these characters having feelings around this One Mcguffin, and all of it works.
Plus, I just generally enjoy the setting and world building of these movies, like it's simultaneously fairy tale/medieval Spain, but also the Mexico of the Western canon and it’s just such a weird mash up but they commit to it so hard that it works. And for this go round they really got to embrace the animation pastiche style of Spiderman Into The Spiderverse which is a great vibe.
Also, the characters! Let’s just shout out everybody in the movie.
Salma Hayek and Antonio Banderas, been in lots of movies together, Western-y echoes of all of them, super fun to see their cat characters do cat combat and have cat banter. Cats! They’re fun!
Harvi Gullion, having his moment, making that animated comedy movie money. Wagner Moura being an effective bad guy who you believe in. Florence Pugh, Samson Kayo, Olivia Coleman, Ray Winstone as Goldilocks and the Three Bears. They just have a great time AND its a classic bad guys to friends turn around.
And last but not least, John Mulaney as the villian is legitimately creepy! I myself am increasingly creeped out by him just as a dude (his schtick is oddly wholesome but he’s also a recovering drug addict), so like, it totally works!
So when Puss In Boots 2 comes to your closet streaming service, or you feel like your kids might be ready for a… darker entry in the Shrek franchise (lol), definitely check it out! Don’t feel compelled to spend $25 or $30 on it, just wait for it to drop in price or go to Netflix or whatever. Or maybe do, my wife really did enjoy it. It’s a great date night movie the whole family can enjoy, and hey how much were you going to spend on an Uber out anyway, at least $25 bucks, am I right?