With a luscious visual reboot, an A-list cast, and several scenes that will make the grown-ups go "oof" out loud, this tardy Puss in Boots sequel proves that Dreamworks has matured alongside the animation market — taking cues from Bojack Horseman by way of The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly.

Produced by Guillermo del Toro — whose Pinocchio and The Shape of Water combine a fondness for fairytale animals and grown-up horror — The Last Wish injects a shiver of childhood imagination into Dreamworks’ signature visual humour and late-night movie nods. Topped off with dreamy, sometimes abstract animation, inspired by the similarly lauded Spiderman: Into The Spiderverse, Joel Crawford’s sequel sets out a Logan-style gritty spinoff with surprising success.

The strategic vibe shift, which has helped nab The Last Wish a 7.9 on IMDb, involves a change in villains since 2011. The Shrek franchise is a foundational text of online memery, but Puss’s 2011 foe — an egg voiced by Zach Galifianakis — was nothing more. His replacement is a PTSD-inducing, scythe-wielding wolf voiced by Pablo Escobar from Narcos (Wagner Moura). As cinema connoisseurs agree, a great animated animal baddie needs to be weirdly seductive (Scar), and this one delivers.

After a generic song and dance opener, a beautifully designed bar scene introduces not just Wolf but an undeniably Bojack-esque theme. Instead of the usual kids’ movie spiel about believing in yourself and following your dreams, The Last Wish offers a cautionary tale for a grizzled, jaded narcissist, like a Spaghetti Western Christmas Carol. Unexpectedly, the sequel develops the gleeful ‘grown-up’ references of the Shrek universe into something darker: the recurring joke about Puss’s love for leche as a feline alcohol problem develops into his walking off a tower and dying while sloshed on it. It’s subtle, but this grown-up theme of overcoming, rather than finding, your ego and making amends for it runs through the rest of an often outrageous ‘children's’ film.

Having squandered eight of his nine lives on irresponsible, leche-fuelled carousing, Puss (Antonio Banderas) finds himself cornered by wolf, who he initially takes for a bounty hunter. When Goldilocks and the Three Bears (Florence Pugh, parented by Olivia Colman and Ray Winstone respectively) bust into his retirement safe-house with news of a wishing star, Puss decides to beat them to it and get his lives back. With his spicy jilted fiancé Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek) also on the hunt, the squad is rounded out by Perrito (Harvey Guillén), a winsome canine naif oblivious to the fact that his family literally tried to kill him.

The Shrekverse has long been characterized by its pop culture easter eggs alongside kiddie plotlines — notoriously the ‘white Bronco’ helicopter chase in Shrek 2. Now that the original audience has grown up, the film steps away from a cookie-cutter realist visual style to knit its carnival of tones together.

Aside from the intelligent detail in the animation to differentiate emotional themes, the film is carried by the commitment of actors known for meatier roles. Olivia Colman in particular weaponizes her image as Awkward British Mum to the world as the mama bear — single-handedly carrying the Goldilocks plot about appreciating your family — as the only relatable bit for the under-elevens here.

In another Bojack-ish element, main voices are instantly traceable to a live action celeb and a signature role. Here, instead of Maggot Gyllenhaal and Ethan Hawk, we have Florence Pugh as a saucy Cockney girlboss, and, delightfully, John Mulaney as Jack Horner. Providing not only a literal grab bag of cinematic reference — “I’ll get you my kitties, and your little dog too!” — Mulaney-Horner provides a standup’s version of moral commentary, in dialogue with ‘Ethical Bug’. “Yeah I’m going to shoot a puppy, in the face, why?” he snaps.

Funny enough to appeal to kids, but sufficiently honest to entertain adults, The Last Wish can feel like a game of bingo at times, pushing a reasonable if uninspired message about living a worthwhile life. A worthy sequel and an ambitious, visually striking film, The Last Wish wrings another life out of a well-travelled franchise.