Cinema Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022) - Very Predictable but Good

[Arnox]

Rating

4.00 star(s)

Heard a lot of good things about the movie so I wanted to see it. So... IS DREAMWORKS BACK, BABY? Ehhh... Maybe. It's a solidly executed movie for sure. I don't see anything wrong with it at all there. Nevertheless, it really was super predictable. And I'm not one to smack a movie for this just because I predicted the ending somewhat well. After all, I've seen a fuckton of movies. What I mean is that even the entire sequence of events that unfolds in the movie was predictable. Because of that, I had to deduct an entire star off. Still though, perhaps this movie wasn't really aimed at adults, so if it wasn't, fair enough. I will say that it's still a very watchable and entertaining movie, even if it wasn't. Hardly the second coming, but hey, not every movie needs to be Lord of the Rings. Give it a watch, but be sure to keep your expectations in check.

 

[Phiwise_]

I don't see many movies, but puss in boots was my least predictable movie in some time. I predicted any emotional tension or serious stakes would be constantly undercut by mediocre jokes, and was blown away when the shrekspawn merchandising vehicle about an animated anthropomorphic cat and nursery rhyme baker racing to the impact site of a literal fallen star took itself more seriously than what seems to be the typical live-action blockbuster these days. Finally another kid's movie with a genuine antagonist, unnerving and melancholic scenes that aren't either immediately collapsed or resolved, and rather impressive visuals that are actually integrated into the scene instead of just wall-of-sound novelties in the middle distance of each shot? Sign me up.

"Well-executed" is a bit of a snub to the accomplishment here, which is to say to the degree that it stands out from the crowd. (I did put quotes around that phrase, but let me assure you it's not to insult it. Perhaps I should have put quotes around the quotes to make that clear.) Whatever the latest Disney or Illumination movie is was """well-executed""". (Ah, much better.) This movie was no [whatever glory days Pixar film you want to name, maybe Toy Story or Ratatouille] , but it was straight-up good. I'd personally not consider giving a merely well-executed movie more than three stars, so maybe we're just misaligned on that scale, but I think there's just about as much of a case to be made that this one deserves five stars as there is for four. It's not perfect, but almost entirely in sufficiently small ways, which is what makes a five-star movie.

 

[Houseman]

Huh, it says 4 stars when you hover over it but I only see one star

 

[Arnox]

I don't see many movies, but puss in boots was my least predictable movie in some time. I predicted any emotional tension or serious stakes would be constantly undercut by mediocre jokes, and was blown away when the shrekspawn merchandising vehicle about an animated anthropomorphic cat and nursery rhyme baker racing to the impact site of a literal fallen star took itself more seriously than what seems to be the typical live-action blockbuster these days. Finally another kid's movie with a genuine antagonist, unnerving and melancholic scenes that aren't either immediately collapsed or resolved, and rather impressive visuals that are actually integrated into the scene instead of just wall-of-sound novelties in the middle distance of each shot? Sign me up.

"Well-executed" is a bit of a snub to the accomplishment here, which is to say to the degree that it stands out from the crowd. (I did put quotes around that phrase, but let me assure you it's not to insult it. Perhaps I should have put quotes around the quotes to make that clear.) Whatever the latest Disney or Illumination movie is was """well-executed""". (Ah, much better.) This movie was no [whatever glory days Pixar film you want to name, maybe Toy Story or Ratatouille] , but it was straight-up good. I'd personally not consider giving a merely well-executed movie more than three stars, so maybe we're just misaligned on that scale, but I think there's just about as much of a case to be made that this one deserves five stars as there is for four. It's not perfect, but almost entirely in sufficiently small ways, which is what makes a five-star movie.

Spoiler

Well, one of the big problems with it in terms of predictability is that it follows the pretty cliched "real treasure was the friends we had along the way" playbook to a T. Death was a very nice mix-up to that, but besides that, the movie still had that huge cliche that it was hauling around on its proverbial back for the entire runtime. Because of this, almost all of the end messages and the end results of the character arcs feel rather trite and elementary. A great lesson for kids, sure, but so is basic addition and subtraction. If we're looking at this from an adult perspective, I would like to think that most adults don't need to hear this lesson and have long since moved on to more advanced and emotionally tough issues.

View attachment 104

Huh, it says 4 stars when you hover over it but I only see one star

Looks like you found a visual bug in the theme. Also confirmed it for the 2-bit, Matrices, and somewhat for the TOTSE theme. I'll see if I can fix it per the next Sanctuary update.

 

[Houseman]

I watched it with @Signa. I thought it was good.

I wasn't expecting it to have the Into The Spiderverse art-style.

 

[Arnox]

I watched it with @Signa. I thought it was good.

I wasn't expecting it to have the Into The Spiderverse art-style.

Yeah, that was a unique decision.

 

[Battousai]

Yeah, that was a unique decision.

Several animated movies are taking that art style and animation approach, there is a new ninja turtle movie that's gonna come out done like that

 

[Gauche]

The beginning was too much
The end was too easy

 

[Arnox]

The beginning was too much

I think the beginning was purposefully made to be excessively self-indulgent so that

Spoiler

when Death comes to kick the shit out of him (and kill him), it's actually kinda satisfying.

The end was too easy

I don't think that would be an issue per se if they weren't following the Friends We Made Along the Way playbook so hard. Again, it's almost painfully predictable.

 

[Gauche]

the beginning was purposefully made to be excessively self-indulgent

Too much is too much

I don't think that would be an issue per se if they weren't following the Friends We Made Along the Way playbook so hard. Again, it's almost painfully predictable.

Friendship melts steel beams