★★★★

Twelve years have flown since DreamWorks’ Puss in Boots last swashbuckled his way across the multiplex. Sixty-five by cat count. So long a break has killed many a franchise past – whatever happened to TinTin? – but what a difference the hiatus has spawned here. In animation alone, The Last Wish attains frankly astonishing visual superiority. To this a Spider-Versal debt is owed. Then there’s the narrative, which is pitched somewhere between the last of Disney’s Pirates series and, of all things, Wolverine swan song Logan. It’s surprisingly, impressively, mature material for a modern day fairytale.