Shrek Forever After
Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Julie Andrews, John Cleese, Walt Dohrn, Lake Bell,
This post is a review and may contain spoilers. Read at your own risk.
RottenTomatoes rating: 57%
Rated: PG [See Full Rating]
Runtime: 1 hr. 34 min.
Genre: Action & Adventure, Animation,Science Fiction & Fantasy, Comedy, Kids & Family
Shrek Forever After, or Shrek 4 as some call it, is the last in the DreamWorks animated series starring the voice talent of Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Julie Andrews, John Cleese, Eddie Murphy, Antonio Banderas, and many many more.
This movie could be viewed as a stand-alone but is (as with most series) understood best in the context of its sister shows.
Shrek 4 starts out with Shrek and Fiona putting together the birthday party for their new little ones. We see the typical story of happy father slowly worn down by the same old, same old. Eventually this gives way to ennui, and that morphs into severe dissatisfaction with life as it is. Enter the villain: Rumpelstiltskin (voiced by the wonderful Walt Dohrn).
I would rate this movie as child safe and viewable by most over the age of 5 or 6. Any jokes that may not really be for children are, as in previous Shrek films, aimed solely at adults and the kiddos just don’t get them.
Shrek 4 is a wonderful romp through Far Far Away and plays well against the back drop of “what if”. Shrek is forced to come to terms with how his life would be different, or rather, how everyone else’s life would be different if he had never entered the picture. Taking a page from famed director Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), the story trails through the fact that his wife would of course have no idea who he is and therefore none of his children would be alive.
But there is more to this story than that. Shrek, for all his faults, really did make a difference in his world. He rescued the princess [Shrek 1], saved the nation from the evil Fairy Godmother and son [Shrek 2], and managed to fend off a coup de tat by the previously jilted Prince Charming [Shrek 3] all while being a good husband and father to his little brood. Now that he has taken Stiltskin’s deal of “one day the way it used to be”, he learns the price of dissatisfaction with a good thing.
Mike Mitchell, director, does a wonderful job twisting all the plot turns together and manages to add some wonderful new supporting characters. However, a major drawback to doing so is that this is the LAST movie in the series. For what it’s worth, the new characters are funny and everything we’ve come to expect from the Shrek syndicate.
Cameron Diaz, Mike Myers, et al of the previous movies reprise their roles with aplomb. I can easily say that their portrayals of older [if not necessarily wiser] characters seems natural and not at all stretched. The new comers to the cast did a wonderful job as well and fit smoothly into the fold with the old talent.
I realize this review is a bit late to the party, but if you haven’t seen it I can recommend it as a worth the money flick. It rounds out the series, ties up a few loose ends, and (while I am sad to see the series go) gives us a last farewell to characters that so many of us learned to love from our teen years.
May the ogres be plentiful and the cats with boots grow fat on the cream. They deserve it.
My rating: 4 out of 5.
My final opinion: Go see it. Take the kids.
