When Puss (Antonio Banderas) finds himself down to the last of his nine lives and pursued by a Wolf bounty hunter (Wagner Moura) he initially goes into hiding. But then he hears of a quest to discover a wishing star that has fallen into the Black Forest that could restore all of his lives. So he heads out with Kitty Soft Paws (Salma Hayek) and a stray dog named Perrito (Harvey Guillen) to find it. 

When I settled down to watch this animation with my children I was expecting a middle of the road film that was in the bracket of “more for the children than the adults in the room”. But I have to say I was pleasantly surprised to find a really entertaining movie that I was impressed with. 

There is a lot to enjoy here. Every time our heroes jump into action the animation style jumps into a variation of that used in Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse where it almost becomes stop motion and features a heightened visual imagery. The big bad Wolf bounty hunter seeking Puss out is an enjoyable villain who poses a genuine threat and invokes an interesting emotional reaction of fear in our fearless hero. Whilst the trio of the three bears (Olivia Colman, Ray Winstone and Samson Kayo) and Goldilocks (Florence Pugh) who are also chasing the star are lots of fun. Their British colloquialisms and name calling was hilarious and it’s always nice to hear someone be called a “muppet” in a film! And there is a version of Jiminy Cricket who is also hilarious. 

The moral for the kids will be about family and learning to appreciate what you already have right in front of you. And the result will be a film everyone will enjoy.