Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (Collector’s Edition) [4K Ultra HD]

Director: Joel Crawford, Januel P. Mercado (Co-Director)

Cast: Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek Pinault, Harvey Guillén (VOICES)

Release Date: February 28, 2023

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Film Rating: 9/10
Disc Rating: 8/10

Synopsis:

Everyone’s favorite leche-loving, swashbuckling, fear-defying feline, Puss in Boots, returns in a new adventure from the Shrek universe as the daring outlaw discovers that his passion for adventure and heroic missions have taken their toll. Puss has burned through eight of his nine lives, though he lost count along the way. Getting those lives back will send Puss in Boots into the Black Forest to find the mythical Wishing Star on his grandest quest yet. With only one life left, Puss is forced to humble himself and ask for help from his former partner and nemesis: Kitty Softpaws. They are joined in their journey by a chatty and cheerful mutt named Perrito. Together, our trio of heroes will need to stay one step ahead of the fairy tale realm’s craftiest crooks including Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Please Note: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray I reviewed in this Post. The opinions I share are my own.

The long-awaited sequel ‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’ rejoins our heroic feline daredevil Puss in Boots still up to his old death-defying tricks and loving every minute of it. But when Puss discovers that he’s carelessly burned through eight of his nine lives thanks to his dangerous ways and is then confronted by a deadly bounty hunter who just might be more than he can handle, he hesitantly decides to hang up his role and hide out at a local cat rescue. Yet when Puss realizes that the myth of The Last Wish may in fact be true, he can’t resist setting out on a quest to track it down in the hope that he might be able to wish for his other lives back before fate catches up to him. Unfortunately to stand any chance of success he’ll have to put his trust in his old crush/nemesis Kitty Softpaws and an annoyingly chipper and kind unnamed doggie who he meets pretending to be a cat at the rescue home.

The animated sequel is guided along by director Joel Crawford (The Croods: A New Age) and co-director Januel P. Mercado (TV’s Harvey Beaks) from a screenplay by Paul Fisher (The Lego Ninjago Movie) and Tommy Swerdlow (Cool Runnings) and a story by Swerdlow and Tom Wheeler, Crawford and Mercado do a great job at the helm of ‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’ guiding along the fast-paced and beautifully animated fun with style. The film’s noteworthy voice cast includes Antonio Banderas (Puss in Boots), Salma Hayek Pinault (The Pirates! Band of Misfits), Harvey Guillén (TV’s Harley Quinn), Florence Pugh (Don’t Worry Darling), Olivia Coleman (The Mitchells vs the Machines), Ray Winstone (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), Samson Kayo (The Bubble), John Mulaney (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), Wagner Moura (The Gray Man), Da’Vine Joy Randolph (TV’s Only Murders in the Building) and Anthony Mendez (TV’s Jane the Virgin), with nearly all offering fitting and fully capable voice performances in each of their respective roles.

‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’ is a beautiful, touching and thoroughly exciting new adventure with the heroic feline Puss in Boots that’s filled with fun, excitement and laughs around every turn. The noticeably different looking animation style this time around may throw some folks to begin with, but once you start to get involved it quickly proves to be something quite special that works marvelously here and helps bring this storybook-inspired tale to vibrant and colorful life even better than you might imagine. Utilizing a smart story with plenty of opportunities to provide humor and thrills and a stellar voice-cast to both help it all evolve into something special and contribute some perfectly fitting charm and goofiness into both the heroes and villains of the tale, ‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’ is one of the more pleasantly surprising animated outings of late that only exceeds expectations and surpasses its predecessor in nearly every possible way. If you or anyone else in your home enjoyed the first film or even the Shrek series that it was spun off of, then get ready for another animated good time that you won’t even want to consider missing out on.

Overall, ‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’ delivers a massively enjoyable, gorgeously animated and consistently amusing adventure for the family that sends Puss and company on a dangerous quest for a mythical wish that serves up plenty of excitement, humor and heart with a collection of unique characters to accompany along its course. ‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’ is highly recommended, especially for anyone that enjoyed its predecessor as well as other family-oriented animated features with plenty to keep us older kids (aka adults) just as easily enthralled. It’s a surprisingly fantastic follow-up that (perhaps even more surprisingly) is notably superior to the original and should easily prove well worth your time and the cost of a rental for anyone that’s interested in checking it out. This one should also make a great selection for a relaxing family movie night at home.

VIDEO:

The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray release of ‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’ features a full 2160p Ultra High Definition presentation with HDR-10, presented in its original 2.39:1 Cinemascope Aspect Ratio. The video presentation looks very nice as a whole and delivers a clean, sharp and wonderfully detailed presentation from start to finish that never finds itself suffering from any unexpected problems along the way. The video presentation is unsurprisingly somewhat darker than the Blu-ray (largely due to the HDR addition) yet shows noticeable improvement in depth, detail and clarity on everything from character details and textures, down to backgrounds and the animation designs which all look quite stellar. The HDR-10 addition also contributes a more intricate color palette with vibrant, bold colors that are complemented by deep, rich blacks throughout. Overall, this is a solid Ultra High Definition video presentation that should please fans as well as newcomers.

AUDIO:

The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray release features a Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 channel compatible) soundtrack. Please note that this review pertains solely to the Dolby TrueHD 7.1 audio presentation. This multichannel soundtrack makes a delightful complement to the onscreen fun and adventure and provides a clean, crisp and immersive audio presentation throughout. It repeatedly takes advantage of all seven available channels in order to send music, action and nature effects, along with bits of dialogue and plenty more regularly zipping throughout the various speakers and never allowing any dialogue or other audio elements that might be occurring simultaneously to become distorted or problematic in the process. Overall, this is a great Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 compatible) soundtrack that holds up well throughout and shouldn’t disappoint in the slightest.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray release of ‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’ includes a nice collection of bonus content with something for fans of all ages to enjoy. Included on the release is an ‘Audio Commentary with Director Joel Crawford, Co-Director Januel Mercado, Producer Mark Swift, Editor James Ryan and Head of Story Heidi Jo Gilbert’, in addition to the new Animated Short ‘The Trident’ (running approximately 4 minutes in length) and a few ‘Deleted Scenes’ from the movie (running approximately 8 minutes altogether), along with ‘Jack Horner’s Line-O-Rama’ (approximately 2 minutes). We are also treated to some Behind the Scenes Featurettes that include interviews/comments with the cast and crew, plus behind the scenes footage and more including ‘In the Beginning’ (approximately 9 minutes) and a look at the new film’s stars in ‘A Cast of Characters’ (approximately 13 minutes altogether). Also included on the release are the ‘”Fearless Hero” Lyric Video’ (3 minutes), plus ‘How to Draw the Purrfect Pawtrait’ instructions on how to draw three characters from the film (approximately 12 minutes combined), along with ‘How to Make a Paper Perrito’ (7 minutes) and a ‘Kitty Cam’ video (14 minutes).

*Please note that the above images are taken from the Blu-Ray disc included in the 4K UHD Combo Pack and resized. They do not represent the quality of the 4K Ultra HD disc itself and will additionally suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on the 4K UHD & Blu-Ray release are the property of their respective owners.

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Film Rating: 9/10
Disc Rating: 8/10

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‘Puss In Boots: The Last Wish’ is Now Available to Own on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, DVD & Digital from DreamWorks Animation & Universal Pictures Home Entertainment

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