Would you believe Dreamworks made a movie for all ages, distanced from traditional plots, culturally accurate, and enjoyable? Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is a perfect movie if you wish to enjoy an unconventional animated movie.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish was released in December of 2022 and tells the story of how an infamous cat, used his 8 lives carelessly due to his classic Spanish knight attitude where he does not care about anything because he has multiple lives. At the beginning of the movie, Puss is drunk, fighting a giant while he sings and saves the village. As the battle ends he is carelessly celebrating as if nothing had happened, and flattened by a giant boulder. Puss had lost his 8 past lives because he was careless and overconfident. When a doctor tells him there is only one way to regain all his lives he must travel to the “Dark Forest” and find a magical star that will grant him any wish he desires. 

The historical accuracy and references in the movie made it all the more entertaining. The sophisticated humor and character development are great. Although, the directors could improve the way they handled the moral of the story. Great movies don’t give the moral to the audience but rather let them gather their own conclusion. For example, the movie Fight Club does it perfectly and includes a great lesson, but is designed so the audience can generate their own conclusions about the moral. 

Back in the Spanish golden age, 2 philosophies composed the literature of the time Memento Mori which in Latin translates as “remember that you will die” and Carpe Diem which means “live your best life until the day of your death.” Memento Mori is portrayed in this movie as the antagonist “death” who is a wolf dressed as a grim reaper that chases after Puss the whole movie reminding him that his time is running out. On the other hand, Carpe Diem is seen in Puss, not only in how he lived his past lives but also as he chases the star, we can see that he is always looking for an adventure and loves to live life to the fullest, but only as the entitled hero.

Another interesting characteristic is the movie’s similarity to the classic book Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes. One similarity is the moral of the story, but the most captivating similarity is the main characters themselves. Both Puss and Don Quijote are fake heroes who partake in dangerous adventures so that they get recognized as the heroes they say they are.

At the beginning of their stories, they are both careless about their lives and will do anything to be seen as the characters they dream of, but as the story progresses they begin to value their lives more. The final similarity in these two stories is their escudero, Perrito, and Sancho Pansa shares a similar backstory in which they were both meaningless in life until they found their heroes,  Puss, and Don Quijote. In both stories, once the respective escudero find their knights they never leave them giving their unconditional support no matter how stupid the decision of the main characters might be.

Although this is not the first time animated movies used references from classic texts of their respective culture, surely no other movie based their plot on a classic text. This makes the movie all the more interesting because if you are fortunate enough to know this story as the movie progresses you begin to relate the movie with the classic text making it all the more interesting.

Back in the day, the Spanish Empire had a massive rivalry with the English Empire, this rivalry was so big that it is well known throughout world history. With this in mind, Dreamworks took advantage of the historical rivalry and decided to base its story on the Discovery of America.

The dark forest correlates to the Atlantic Ocean, and the star would be the continent of the Americas. The villain of this film is Jack Horner, a character from an English traditional song and even some fairy tales. The plot follows history.  In front are the Spaniards with a small fleet full of thieves, in this case Kitty Softpaws and Puss in Boots. Trailing them was the English empire with a larger and better prepared fleet. This is something that many animated movies don’t follow and DreamWorks make sure that this movie had multiple references to Iberian history, in contrast to this is the movie Encanto which massively fails to accurately represent Colombian culture. 

In conclusion, this movie is a masterpiece, from the plot to the moral, and even the characters. It does not have an age limit, adults can enjoy the historical references, and the advanced humor of this movie, while children enjoy an entertaining animated movie with a powerful moral. This movie has something that lately most animated movies lack: a powerful moral and history accurateness that all the spectators enjoy. This movie is now streaming in all countries via Disney +.