Shrek [Mike Myers] has become [he thinks] ordinary – he has a wife and three babies; random strangers ask him to roar for their children; the Far Far Away tour bus stops by his swamp home to point out the totally not scary ogre who saved the kingdom. Life is perfect. Perfectly boring. More than anything, he would like a day of being scary – and able to have a mudbath in piece.
Following a Groundhog Day montage of the triplets’ birthday that plays over and over, each time through worse than the time before, Shrek encounters Rumplestiltskin [Walt Dohrn, also Head of Story for the film] – a snake oil salesman if there ever was one. Rumple offers him a deal: exchange the next day for one of Shrek’s days as a baby – a day he wouldn’t even remember.
The catch is simple, Rumpel chooses the day Shrek was born – and before you say George Bailey, Shrek is in a Far Far Away where ogres are hunted down and imprisoned; the aerial police force is composed of witches, and Rumpel is the tyrannical dictator. But there’s a resistance – and an escape clause. The resistance is led by Fiona [Cameron Diaz] and the escape clause means Shrek can save the day with True Love’s Kiss.
Shrek Forever After is a vast improvement over Shrek II and Shrek the Third. The wit and humor are sharper and the pop culture references not as overwhelmingly abundant – enabling us to focus more on the characters. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Shrek movie without a few such references – the movie itself is a mash-up of Groundhog Day and It’s a Wonderful Life [with a little Braveheart thrown in for fun].
What matters are the characters and the situations in which they find themselves. Shrek has never been more alone – he never saved Fiona, so she doesn’t even know who is. The same with Donkey [Eddie Murphy], who has a job pulling cartloads of imprisoned ogres to Rumpel’s castle; and with Puss, who is more than a half-a-dozen shadows of his former self. As for Fiona, well, let’s just say it doesn’t look like she’ll be kissing him [or vice-versa] anytime soon…
The script, by Josh Klausner and Darren Lemke, remembers the best bits of the earlier films and so we get smart cameos by Pinocchio, Gingerbread Man [think Gladiator] and others – but it’s by putting Shrek smack dab in the middle of a mid-life crisis that they give us a new look at all our favorite characters from the first film.
Director Mike Mitchell [whom we officially forgive for Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo] gives us more than a perfunctory money siphon here [can you say Shrek the Third? I knew you could]. He gets fine performances from his cast – and especially Dreamworks’ own Walt Dohrn as the conniving Rumpel. He also sees to it that the film moves well – though the battle sequences are probably longer than absolutely necessary.
The 3D CG animation is lovely – though it still blurs a bit on quick pans – and adds immeasurably to the atmosphere of the film [though Mitchell could have lost a few of the several instances where stuff seems to be about to land in the audience’s lap].
Shrek Forever After has the subtitle The Final Chapter. Let’s hope it really is. No one wants another Shrek the Third, so this is definitely the right place stop.
Final Grade: B