‘Puss In Boots: The Last Wish’ review: Banderas has a blast

Antonio Banderas of course enjoys enjoying this darn cat. 

As the swashbuckling Puss in Boots, the actor’s voice reverberates with the unrestrained enthusiasm, charm and boisterous pleasure lacking in his flops “Dolittle” and “Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard.” He’s animated in far more approaches than a person.

The person treats this self-absorbed Spanish kitty who continuously speaks in the third person like it is his Hamlet. And, you know what? It just might be.

Puss, who appeared in 2004’s “Shrek 2,” is back just after his stand-alone spinoff 12 several years in the past in “Puss in Boots: The Past Want.” And it’s wonderful! The family movie does not get the franchise or studio DreamWorks to new heights of invention, but it does have Oscar winner Olivia Colman voice a Cockney bear. 

The stakes are large for our preferred feline. Soon after a musical commence with a track identified as “Who is Your Favored Fearless Hero,” in which Puss is offed in a whoopsie incident, he learns from a health care provider that he’s burned via eight of his nine life and is now thoroughly mortal. “My prescription,” the doc suggests, “No more adventures. You need to retire.” 

And so, the restless rodent-catcher hangs up his hat and moves into Mama Lana’s Cat Rescue, which is an episode of “Animal Hoarders” waiting around to materialize. Like David Letterman, Puss grows a beard. He also can make mates with a anonymous stray pet they contact Perro (Harvey Guillén), who’s pretending to be a cat to match in. The extremely lovable character throws pet dog lovers a bone.

His twilight many years are shaken up when Goldilocks (Florence Pugh) and the 3 bears (Colman, Ray Winstone and Samson Kayo) barge in. They explain to Puss about a magical wishing star that could help save him — if he gets to it very first. So, along with Perro and aged flame Kitty (Salma Hayek), he races from Goldi and a bulbous Lewis Carroll-esque baddie named Jack Horner (John Mulaney) to arrive at the enchanted item.

Indeed, it is your common Macguffin, with every person chasing down a trinket, but a pretty inventive one particular with a lot of excellent jokes. The comic-guide-design action sequences also established co-directors Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado’s motion picture aside from the litter.

The No. 1 motive to watch, even though, is Banderas’ prime-notch voice performance. If only a lot more A-listers handled their animated movie roles as extra than a pet venture.