By: Wendy Ide

Read on the Guardian

This Shrek spin-off is a breezily entertaining DreamWorks animation that harnesses the familiar appeal of the self-aggrandising feline (Antonio Banderas), while also adopting a distinctive and original graphic visual style. Directors Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado both worked on the Kung Fu Panda films, and it's perhaps this, plus the striking stylised action sequences of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, that informs the bold, peppy approach to Puss's gravity-defying derring-do.

The plot is basic: down to his final life, Puss sees an opportunity to restore the full nine with a magic wishing star. He's not the only one seeking it: Goldilocks and her ursine crime syndicate are on his trail, as is the monstrous “Big” Jack Horner. And then there's Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek) and wannabe emotional support animal Perrito the chihuahua (Harvey Guillén). It helps that the writing is as sharp as Puss's claws.

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It might be hard to believe it today, but there was a time when “Shrek” seemed like a breath of fresh air in the world of big-screen animation. Its salty humor and insistent pop culture knowingness was fun for a minute, before the sequels got nudging and formulaic. And then there was the whole shoving-Smash Mouth-down-our-throat issue. DreamWorks, the studio that concocted “Shrek,” soon enough became the anti-Pixar — in a bad way.

- Read on the New York Times

“Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” is as spry and light on its feet as its titular feline. The inherently alluring paradox of the swashbuckling kitty from the “Shrek” universe remains firmly in place 11 years after his first solo feature. He's a dashing adventurer, a charmer with the ladies, feared and renowned throughout the land—but he’s also unbearably adorable as he laps up milk from a shot glass with his pinky, sandpapery tongue. As always, the charismatic and sensitive Antonio Banderas finds just the right tone in exploring this furry animated figure's suave and silly sides.

- Read on Roger Ebert

Moviegoers shouldn’t have to rely on a sequel to a Shrek spinoff from 11 years ago to discover dazzling spectacle, but here we are. Just days after Avatar: The Way of Water finessed and stretched the photoreal CG language of James Cameron's original to greater heights (depths?), a frickin' Puss in Boots movie swings the action pendulum in the complete opposite stylistic direction, while remaining on Cameron’s audacious wavelength. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, the latest DreamWorks Animation film, steals mercilessly from the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse playbook, and you know what, thank god for it — the result is a fairy tale adventure that complements genuine laughs with splashy, impressionistic art.

- Read on Polygon

You'd be forgiven for thinking that the Shrek franchise was on its last life by now. While the 2001 original and its even-funnier 2004 sequel shook up the status quo with their sharp Disney-fairy-tale satire, diminishing returns saw the anarchic ogre’s impact dwindle over time. It’s fair to say, then, that Puss In Boots: The Last Wish — a sequel to a spin-off that graced cinema screens over a decade ago — doesn’t arrive with much momentum behind it. That it frequently explodes into sequences of vital, visually dazzling, capital-c Cinema is a truly unexpected delight.

- Read on Empire

It's a pleasant surprise when the film that isn't quite Shrek 5 turns out to be the best of that sequence. It's an even bigger surprise to discover that Puss In Boots: The Last Wish is a compelling companion piece to Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain and Glory, in which a declining film practitioner (Antonio Banderas) ponders his mortality.

- Read on the Irish Times

The Shrek franchise has always been one of diminishing returns, never again reaching the all-star heights of the original, which itself is of dubious overall quality. This was nowhere more apparent than in the spin-off film Puss In Boots, an exceedingly ugly and unfunny romp that is best left as a forgotten footnote of Dreamworks’ animated output. However, Dreamworks Animation is apparently having a really good year, first with the surprisingly fun heist antics of The Bad Guys, and now with the Puss In Boots sequel, The Last Wish (in theaters everywhere December 21), which is so visually striking and narratively engaging that it feels unfair that it took the Shrek franchise six films to get here.

- Read on AV Club