THE FOURTH TIME’S THE CHARM

Shrek Forever After

***

Review by Paul Preston

Shrek and Company return for “The Final Chapter” of the Shrek film series, and thankfully, this time the “Company” is smaller. I always thought that the Shrek sequels had a case of Schumacher-Batman-itis, piling on too many supporting characters, losing the charm of the main characters we came to see in the first place in the process. “Shrek 2” added six major characters to the fold, and “Shrek the Third” added close to a dozen. Outside of some extra ogres, “Shrek Forever After” really only adds two new characters to the mix, and the film remembers to have tons of fun with the team of goofballs we loved from the beginning.

The newest character is a good one: Rumpelstiltskin, wonderfully and weasely voiced by Walt Dohrn. Rumpelstiltskin creates contracts granting wishes, but always wants part of the deal to include him gaining ultimate power over the kingdom. The other character is The Pied Piper, who has no dialogue, but does Rumpelstiltskin’s bidding using his flute.

After domestic bliss turns sour for Shrek, he wishes he could go back to the good ‘ol days where he was a mean ogre flying solo. When Rumpelstiltskin grants his wish, an alternate universe is created, and Shrek regrets his decision, determinedly setting out to put his life back together. This is a great plot device for a fourth movie. This late in the franchise, you can just PLAY, and there’s freedom in making jokes and outlandish action scenes in this context, instead of having to pull together a million characters into a clogged finale, as was the case in “Shrek the Third”.

Myers, Murphy and Diaz do a great job bringing life to Shrek, Donkey and Fiona, but the highlight this time out is definitely Antonio Banderas as Puss in Boots. EVERYTHING he says is funny. The writers and Banderas are very game to spoof the dramatic intensity Banderas has brought to characters like Zorro, and the ante is upped here when Puss is in the alternate universe and isn’t quite the adventurer he’s been in the past.

There’s a plague, however, that’s affecting all animated movies these days. Even the smallest roles seem to go to name performers, but with minimal results. There’s a whole separate movie’s worth of actors in supporting roles in “Shrek the Third” that were unmemorable – Seth Rogen, Amy Poehler, Ian McShane, Maya Rudolph, Cheri Oteri and Amy Sedaris. If you go to “Shrek Forever After” to hear Jane Lynch, Kathy Griffin, Meredith Viera, Ryan Seacrest and Lake Bell, prepare to be underwhelmed, ‘cause you really can’t tell they’re in the film till you see their names in the credits. It’s stunt casting to deepen the voice talent roster that doesn’t need the help. You had me at Eddie Murphy.

This makes it all the more exciting to see Walt Dohrn, up till now an ancillary voice talent in the Shrek universe, make such an impression as Rumpelstiltskin (he has a different wig for his various emotions. Very funny).

Another lingering issue is the “Shrek” films’ dependence on too much modern music. It’s funny when Donkey sings pop songs, but it seems just a little more desperate when The Pied Piper’s mind-controlling numbers are all disco tunes like “Shake Your Groove Thing”. The concept of ogre-control works without the pop culture help-up.

The BEST use of music in the movie is when Shrek first enjoys his return to true Ogre form and he sets off on a spree of scaring people and terrorizing villages. It’s juxtaposed with The Carpenters’ “Top of the World”. The montage of the mayhem Shrek creates combined with the innocence of The Carpenters’ simple-life lyrics is a riot.

The movie manages to give us Shrek making a bad decision at the beginning of the film (wishing he didn’t have a family), but somehow getting us to root for him soon after. And it’s FUN to root for Shrek again. All that King Arthur stuff just got in the way in the last film. Wanting Shrek and Fiona together again is enough.

I saw “Shrek Forever After” in 3D, although it wasn’t entirely necessary. But at least it wasn’t a HACK job. The 3D effects of “Shrek” and “How to Train Your Dragon” were pretty impressive, leading me to believe that animated films work best with this technology. That being said, there was still color distortion on the sides of the movie screen, a detriment to the hard work of some quality animators. 3D is probably a no-win situation for film purists.

Overall, if the previous Shrek sequels kept you away, this finale for the big, green lug is worth taking in.

Directed by: Mike Mitchell
Release Date: May 21, 2010
Run Time: 93 Minutes
Country: USA
Rated: PG
Distributor: DreamWorks Animation

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