Puss throws a hectic party in a mansion that belongs to the governor of Del Mar… only for a giant to put everybody in danger. Puss successfully defeats the giant – until a bell crushes him.

He learns from a doctor that his 8 out of 9 lives have been completed, and he has 1 life left. Eventually, a frightened Puss seeks sanctuary in the house of a cat lady named Mama Luna. He decides to live as a domesticated cat.

After a while, Puss grows a beard, and encounters a bubbly chihuahua, currently unnamed, but goes by “Perrito,” convinces Puss to become his friend. He even dresses like a cat, and claims the actual felines to be his “friends” – they like to hurt him, but he still remains enthusiastic.

But without warning, the three Bears and Goldilocks, all of whom are much older and evil, break into the house and demand an answer to where Puss is. Puss hides and escapes, especially because of the wishing star he learns about while overhearing their conversation to Mama Luna.

He sneaks into the bakery that belongs to the villainous Jack Horner, who has gathered magical artifacts. He attempts to take the map to the wishing star… only for his ex-fiance, Kitty Softpaws, to try to steal it, too. Perrito joins the two on the mission, which is about to intensify. Who will make it to the wishing star?

Despite the lack of humor that the movies in the main Shrek franchise have, the film kept my interest – but in a different way. That is how I kept becoming curious to what would happen, and it’s intensity – but milder enough for the film to keep its PG rating.

Speaking of which… the movie had profanity, including some mild explicit language, beeping over words, and a character who almost cursed, but was stopped. And there were lots of children in the theater.

I am noticing this a lot with PG-rated movies since the late 2010s, and in movies that are supposed to be family-friendly. It seems that PG is getting closer to the PG-13 rating, and straying from sharing similarities to the G-rating – which it resembled between the 90s and up until the late 2010s.

Despite that, the intensity didn’t become too extreme. One moment that stands out to me is that each individual who rolls out the map has a different path for him or her. For Puss and Kitty Softpaws, the map showed them dangerous places that they had to go through to make it to the wishing star. For Perrito, it was the opposite, with lighthearted paths, such as smelling roses – not chopping them.

Many characters turned out differently than in their original fairy tales or nursery rhymes. For instance, Goldilocks and the 3 bears (now a lot older) were also evil. And for some reason, they were Australian.

What I also found bizarre was how Baby Bear was still called, “Baby,” despite how he’s grown into a teenage or young adult bear.

But the movie had mostly perks, including references to other movies or fairy tales. For example, one of the villains said, “I’ll get you my kitties – and your little dog, too.” It’s an obvious reference to that signature line from The Wizard of Oz that the wicked witch of the west constantly said to Dorothy. I found that to be clever, especially because I would never have expected something like that.

There was also a scene where Jack Horner pulled out a bug – which happened to be a Dreamworks version of Jiminy Cricket, although he doesn’t reveal his name. But he stands on Jack’s shoulder as his conscience, and peacefully tells him how he shouldn’t hurt others, as well as tries to get him to focus on positive things. 

However, when Jack says that he wants to become a sorcerer with all the power possible and use it to rule the world, the cricket guy gets angry and calls him a horrible person. But Jack flicks him off. This could be a reference to the original tale of Pinocchio, (not the Disney adaptation) where something like this actually occurs.

Speaking of originality, there is a flashback of Jack Horner as a child, performing his famous nursery rhyme in song form, which pleases few as everyone prefers Pinocchio’s performance instead. In fact, he is the same character from the main Shrek movies. He’s also the only one from them, aside from Puss.

This makes me wonder if there are different versions of the 3 bears and Goldilocks in that universe. They are definitely not the same ones as in the first Shrek film from 2001. In that movie, they looked different, didn’t have Australian accents, and there was some hint that Mama bear was killed and turned into a rug in Lord Farquuad’s castle.

Although the movie did not make me laugh much, I still enjoyed Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

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