Review: 'Puss in Boots: The Last Wish' puts the 'Shrek'-adjacent feline in a frisky and funny adventure

Oh, the joy of walking into a movie with no expectations, as I did for “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish,” and coming away with a big goofy grin, because of the abundant humor and attention to the animation detail that combine for a surprisingly delightful gem.

For those who don’t remember, Puss — as charmingly voiced by Antonio Banderas — was a supporting player in the second “Shrek” movie, the adventuresome cat repurposed as a Zorro-like swashbuckler. He got his own movie in 2011, and apparently the minds at DreamWorks thought he should get another one.

I don’t really care how it happened, but it’s wonderful that it did, because “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’ may be the best movie in the “Shrek” franchise.

The movie starts with Puss doing what he does best: Battling bad guys, saving townsfolk, and looking debonair doing it. At the end of this particular adventure — rendered with full action-movie adrenaline by directors Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado — Puss gets crushed by the town’s massive church bell.

Well, no problem for a cat with nine lives, right? Well, maybe not, when Puss counts up his past lives (a clever montage of mishaps and misplaced bravado), and realizes that he’s down to his last life.

Puss decides to retire his sword, and enter a nursing home for cats — but there’s only so much soft living a cat of adventure can take. Then he hears there’s a map that can show him the location of the legendary wishing star, and Puss is back in action.

But he’s not the only one looking for the map — which was purchased at great expense by the evil head of a pie-baking conglomerate, Big Jack Horner (voiced by comedian John Mullaney). Puss goes to Jack’s lair to steal it, and finds he’s competing for the map with his nemesis and ex-girlfriend, Kitty Softpaws (again voiced by Salma Hayek Pinault, giving us the “Desperado” reunion we always wanted).

Puss and Kitty reluctantly join forces, accompanied by an overeager chihuahua they call Perro (and voiced by Harvey Guillen from “What We Do in the Shadows”). Also on the scent of the map is one of the area’s toughest crime families: The Three Bears (voiced by Ray Winstone, Olivia Colman and Samson Kayo), with their adopted daughter, Goldilocks (voiced by Florence Pugh). And Jack has assembled his goon squad, the Baker’s Dozen, go get his map back.

Puss also has to worry about someone who’s chasing him: The Big Bad Wolf (voiced by Wagner Moura, Pablo Escobar from “Narcos”), who’s both a bounty hunter and the embodiment of Death. 

There’s a tactile roughness to the computer animation that’s surprisingly energizing, as if the filmmakers decided the action was moving too fast to render too many details. The look matches the pacing, which is usually as fast as Puss’ swordplay and his verbal quips. (Puss’ defiant catchphrase, “Fear me, if you dare!,” will never cease being funny to me.)

“Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” is one of those split-level animated movie that serves up a fun story for the kids, and jokes that will sail over the children’s heads and land with the grown-ups. That approach doesn’t always work on both levels, but when it delights the way this one does, it’s pretty special.

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‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’

★★★1/2

Opens Wednesday, December 21, in theaters. Rated PG for action/violence, rude humor/language, and some scary moments. Running time: 100 minutes.