After nearly 10 years and more than a billion dollars in domestic box office, the SHREK franchise finally comes to the end this weekend with SHREK FOREVER AFTER. And the result, while not perfect, is far better than SHREK THE THIRD, which is sure to charm little ones.
Don’t be confused, some ads call this film THE FINAL CHAPTER, which is accurate, but officially the movie is FOREVER AFTER. In this fourth installment, Shrek (Mike Myers) is really living happily ever after, but the strain of family life is beginning to take its emotional toll. The green guy’s got three children to contend with for Pete’s sake! Having left the old curmudgeon ogre life behind him to settle down with once princess now mother and perfect homemaker Fiona (Cameron Diaz), Shrek longs for just one day where he can be his old self.
In walks Rumpelstiltskin (voiced by Walt Dohrn) who offers Shrek a contract giving him one day back as the fright-inducing ogre he used to be. Of course, there’s a catch to the deal, Shrek grants the trickster Stiltskin one day from Shrek’s past in return for his new “ogre day.” This inevitably leads to what my Film Fix TV co-host Jeff Marker called an IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE moment.. Shrek gets a peek at what his life and the Faraway Kingdom may have been like had he and Fiona never met. True love’s kiss must be found again and Rumpelstiltskin defeated.
Fans of the series will not be horrified–FOREVER AFTER is a perfectly suitable way to end things. But the reason to make yet another SHREK film was clearly a business decision rather than a creative one. And it shows. The choice to release the film in 3D may be an effort to freshen up the series with a new generation of viewers. But really it’s to take advantage of the higher ticket prices. The best advice I can give viewers is not to pay the inflated price to see the film in 3D. While I did see the movie in the three-dimensional format, I just can’t believe that it added anything special to the experience. After all, the first three films were in 2D, right? Some SHREK die-hards may even find the 3D choice a betrayal because the others will now be altered so that they can be watched at home. Having experienced home 3D at our local Best Buy, I can attest that the exciting technology at work there will surely find quick adoption come Christmas.
But what about the humor? The first film made excellent use mixing and flipping fairy tales bringing them into a contemporary world. And the casting helped. Mike Myers and Cameron Diaz played it straight while the likes of Eddie Murphy and Antonio Banderas yucked it up in classic fashion. FOREVER AFTER does not forget how good Banderas and Murphy are in their roles of Puss in Boots and Donkey. There is some just plain hilarious banter between the two, who deliver one-liners with wit and edge sure to make adults smile even while the little ones scratch their collective heads.
SHREK FOREVER AFTER is funny, but the signs of strain on a series past its prime are obvious. It’s a good thing that this is the final chapter.
