Is Puss in Boots: The Last Wish Too Good To Be True?

Recently I watched Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, which in my top movies of 2022; I had in my honourable mentions of movies I was keen to watch but didn’t have time or funds to see before the deadline that I set to get that list out. I put off watching this film because while it looked amazing and seemed exciting enough, it seemed too good to be true, especially as I started to hear more praise from opinions I trusted.
Full disclosure, this is technically part of the Shrek verse, and this is the first film from that franchise I have watched since Shrek 2. I didn’t bother keeping up after that and never heard anything good about the subsequent sequels and spinoffs. Some people contend whether or not Shrek was ever good, but I, for one, maintain that Shrek has a simple but important message that holds up more than ever and that Shrek 2 upstages its predecessor in entertainment value and is one of the better love stories where the couple are already together that uphold the message of the previous film in a way that it didn’t feel like it was repeating itself. Props!
I won’t say that The Last Wish is better than Shrek 2, but entertainment-wise, I think it’s about a little better than Shrek. It is, however, the best stylistic entry in the franchise. And no, I don’t have to watch every entry to know this. Saying that, I don’t consider it to be Dreamworks’ most stylistic film. I still…