103 min | PG | December 21, 2022 | Universal Pictures
A swashbuckling cat realizes he has spent eight of his nine lives and only one remains. He chases a wish that can restore them while Death itself hunts him through the fairy-tale woods. The cartoon about a cat in a hat is really about dying.
Puss in Boots is a swashbuckling cat who has burned through eight of his nine lives. The last one matters now, and he knows it. Word reaches him of a fallen star that grants a single wish, and he sets out to win back the lives he squandered. What sounds like a children’s adventure is a film about a hero confronting his own mortality. Death itself stalks Puss through every scene, and the movie never lets him forget the math.
Antonio Banderas plays Puss with the bravado intact and the fear underneath it brand new. He still struts and flourishes his blade, but Banderas lets the swagger crack when Death gets close. Salma Hayek plays Kitty Softpaws with a guarded wariness that comes from being left at the altar once already. Harvey Guillen plays Perrito, a relentlessly hopeful therapy dog who refuses to be discarded, and his cheerfulness becomes the film’s moral counterweight. Wagner Moura plays the Wolf as Death, whistling and patient, and he turns a cartoon villain into the most frightening figure in any recent animated film.
Joel Crawford directs from a script by Paul Fisher and Tommy Swerdlow, and the visual choice defines the whole picture. The animation drops the smooth digital sheen for a painterly look with visible brushstrokes and stepped frame rates that mimic hand illustration. The action sequences snap into stylized stillness and storybook compositions that recall a moving fresco. The fight with Death uses a screaming red palette and a low ringing in the sound design to signal Puss losing his nerve. Crawford stages panic and serenity with equal control.
The film works because it takes its premise seriously. A studio could have made a coasting sequel about a charming cat. This one builds a meditation on fear and the value of a single ordinary life and hands it to children without condescending to them. The middle sags when too many fairy-tale factions chase the same map, and the plot mechanics crowd out the emotional core for a stretch. The center holds anyway, because every road leads back to the Wolf and the question of whether Puss is brave enough to stop running.