A&E Fatal Fungi Ferocious Felines Fighting Ants

By: Ali Merz, Sly Gross-Hamburger, Lillian Small

‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’, released on December 21, 2022, has accrued overwhelming popularity. The Last Wish has a star-studded cast, with Antonio Banderas as Puss, alongside Olivia Colman, Florence Pugh, Harvey Guillen, and John Mulaney. The movie follows Puss, a sword-wielding, feline bandit whose hazardous lifestyle finally catches up to him. On a quest to escape death, embodied by a whistling wolf, Puss, as well as a ragtag team of fairytale misfits, discover their true wish – which you guessed it – is family. After using eight of his nine lives, Puss experiences fear for the first time, resorting to domestic life at the home of a certified crazy cat lady. Garnering a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, and grossing over 334 million dollars worldwide at the box office, ‘The Last Wish’ has surpassed the success of the original Puss in Boots. The phenomenon of animated children’s movies pulling in hordes of teenagers and adults is nothing new, as seen in the ‘Minions: Rise of Gru’. Both ‘Minions’ and ‘The Last Wish’ are spin-offs of franchises close to many Millenial and Gen Z’s childhoods, with ‘Shrek’ released in 2001, and ‘Despicable Me’ in 2010.

‘The Last Wish’ is visually captivating, and delivers the hallmark elements of a Dreamworks movie, erring on darker themes like death and abandonment.

Using animation inspired by “fairytale books”, the action scenes particularly reminisce comic-style movement. Yes, you will find lackluster comedy as well as formulaic plotlines and characters, but it is exactly this mediocrity that many fans find comfort in. There are worse ways to spend 104 minutes, but you certainly could think of better.

There’s only one word to describe this movie: potential. Quantumania reeks of decision by committee, not surprising given that is the hallmark of Marvel’s house style. However, despite clearly being the product of a studio executive looking at the success of Thor Ragnarok and deciding to just do that again, there are moments when the corporate sheen breaks, and a much wittier and driven movie shines through.

While most of the jokes fall flat in the traditional overly witty marvel style, moments with Quaz, a telepath who is constantly subjected to all the dirty thoughts of the people around him got some genuine laughs. A standout bit in the film is the solid 5 minutes spent implying a past torrid love affair between Michelle Pfeiffer’s Janet Van Dyne and Bill Murray. M.O.D.O.K.’s appearance, in comics the literal head of a terrorist group/megacorp and on screen a cgi-mangled mess of the villain from the first ant man, in the movie is a lot better if you look at it through the lens of a purposeful attempt at humor rather than a serious villain, but still not very impressive. Most of the hate this movie receives is due to a misunderstanding of the intent of the film, and is therefore unwarranted.

Quantumania spends a lot of time trying to emphasize the moral of the story: you shouldn’t stand by while people are harmed, even if it doesn’t affect you. We see Cassie get arrested for fighting police who were raiding a homeless camp and both Janet and Scott are offered the chance to get to go home if they help the villain, even though that will result in innocent deaths. The movie never executes this though, leaving the emotional plot of the movie to fall flat.

While this movie might be a good sign of Marvel moving away from its overly serious Avengers era into creative stories, it’s bogged down by the constraints of being a “Marvel Movie” and an over reliance on CGI. In the end, it’s a film typical of its property.