Puss in Boots: The Last Wish Review: What You Need to Know Before Watching with Kids

The weekend after Thanksgiving our family stumbled upon an early showing of Dreamwork’s new animation Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. As fans of the Shrek movies and the Puss in Boots character, we speed-walked through a crowded mall arriving with minutes to spare. The only remaining seats were up front, and we’d have to split into two groups, but what the heck, we took them anyway.

We had the whole family with us since we had just finished taking family pictures and this was the reward for a job well done. This means we had kids between the ages of 4 and 19 watching this PG-rated movie.

Intensity

The movie starts off rather fun and jovial. Puss is charming the crowd, singing songs, suavely saving the town from the monster he awoke from his antics. And in the process, he gets himself killed. When he awakes, he discovers he is on his last life. A montage of the ways he has died shows he has been frivolous with them.

This is where we meet the wolf. The wolf is introduced as a bounty hunter, although he turns out to be more. He is a fearsome character who invokes fear into the fearless Puss in Boots. As an adult, this character was perfect for what he was portraying, but I felt he was too intense and scary for younger kids. The wolf is one of the main antagonists, so he appears throughout the movie and every scene with him has the same intensity.

My four-year-old ended up on my lap scared. My six-year-old snuggled up to her oldest sister. And my ten-year-old thought he was scary, but that his blades were cool.

Evil Character

The other main antagonist in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, is Jack Horner. This character is pure evil and that trait is exploited in the movie. He murders without hesitation, he’s completely selfish and self-serving, he has no regard for anyone other than himself, and treats everyone around him poorly.

An attempt to give him a conscience is made, but his conscience deems him unreachable and unchangeable. There is no wavering in his desire to be evil. There is no moment of grace or realization that he should change. He is a rather dark character and perhaps too dark for a children’s film.

Pardon My French–Quite A Lot of Language

There was quite a bit of mild cursing in this movie. They frequently bleeped one character who was portrayed as innocent and loveable. Some of his sentences were mostly bleeps. Bleeps are obviously not curse words themselves, but even little kids understand they are meant to edit out the worst curse words. Giving this trait to the purest character in the movie sends a message to kids that coarse language is “cool” and funny.

The Moral of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

There were several lessons or morals in the movie. The overall moral was that you don’t need magic to achieve what you want most. Often what you desire is in front of you or within your means to reach if you put in the effort and are willing to change.

Growth in Characters

The main character did grow positively throughout the movie. He comes to realize what is important and what changes he needs to reach it.

There was also growth in the side characters, in realizing they had what they were seeking all along.

Overall Review of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

The audience who will like this movie the most are those who saw the original Shrek when it came out. I do honestly feel it is a movie written for adults and teens. Although the animation targets a younger audience. My husband felt this should have had a PG-13 rating for the darkness, intensity, and language of some of the characters.

While I enjoyed the movie, I do regret not previewing it before taking my younger children. I don’t feel it’s appropriate for children under 8 and I would advise previewing it first for kids 8-12.