Caught this on a plane. I might not have caught it otherwise, despite the praise I heard heaped on it. And damn if it doesn’t deserve it!
First, it’s surprisingly great visually. It seems to be going for a hand-painted look; sort of like Arcane but better IMO. The action itself is actually super well done: interesting camera angles, clear movement, and just straight up clever action.
The real trick is the characterization, though. With the framing device of the wishing star as a way to drive the plot, pretty soon all of the factions end up in the Dark Forest, a place of magic which can shape itself to the character’s desires and flaws. This allows each of the factions to go through emotionally meaningfully journeys.
“Big” Jack Horner is based on the nursery rhyme “Little Jackie Horner”, turning a kid who uses his thumb to pull out a plum from a pie into a bakery empire/crime kingpin who is jealous of other fairytale characters with magical powers. John Mulaney kills it in this voice role, playing the gleefully deranged Jack. Early on, he reveals a Jiminy Cricket pastiche–complete with Jimmy Stewart-esque voice–who attempts to act as his conscious while he does more and more callous things in pursuit of the wishing star. Jack’s anti-humor of a non-arc both is funny and acts as a great contrast to the other factions.
Goldi and the three Bears reimagine the fairytale as a family of criminals with working-class-coded british accents. Their arc involves Goldi’s desire to use the wish to get back with her “real” parents. Being a movie for children, her arc of realizing her adoptive family is more than enough is quite clearly telegraphed. But it did not stop me from tearing up.
Puss in Boots himself has a character arc that is wrapped up in the main ensemble. In the opening scene he loses the second to the last of his nine lives, leading to him starting to fear death. On cue, a wolf shows up to ostensibly collect Puss’s bounty by finally killing hm for good. Puss runs away, leaving his sword behind. During the journey with his companions, he comes to realize he is letting his desire for an inconsequential life hamstring himself into inaction. The wolf–at this point having been revealed to be Death himself–is no longer interested in killing him, since he respects the value of his life. I was not expected to have basically an existentialist character arc in a children’s movie!
A little more on Death: what a character design! The imposing, larger than life Wolf with a black hood, the twin sickle weapons, and a full on creepy whistle theme??? Just good shit all around.
Kitty Softpaws (apparently from the previous Puss in Boots movie I have not seen) and Perrito both have characters arcs tied into Puss’s. Perrito doesn’t so much have an arc as being aggressively positive enough get Puss to accept a non-solitary life. Kitty’s lack of trust being directly related to Puss leaving her at the altar allows his change to accept his life as precious allowing her to trust again.
All in all this has better character work than like 99% of movies and they didn’t have to do this at all! Like, if they’d just shoveled some trash into our faces no one would notice! But it’s always nice to be able to experience something done with such care.