Cattastrophy, or Redonkulous? (Shrek Forever After Review)

Soon after the third Shrek film was released, I heard that Dreamworks had already planned not only a fourth but also a fifth film for the series.  I don't recall the details, but the fifth was set to be the last, which seemed odd to me.  We Westerners love trilogies, so to end a series with five feels incomplete.  Perhaps the filmmakers hoped that perhaps they could come back to revisit the series, say, 10-20 years after the fifth film was released to make a sixth - and "final" - Shrek adventure, but that's purely a guess.

So you can understand my surprise when Shrek Forever After began its advertising campaign as the "final Shrek movie".  My guess is that Dreamworks saw how poorly Shrek the Third performed in theaters and guessed (rightly) that the series is getting tired.

The result is a film that manages to redeem the franchise by taking it back to what made it so good originally: the excellent characters.  While the first two films built the main characters up into the complex, highly lovable creatures that they are, the third cheapened them severely by throwing them into a lame storyline with even lamer jokes, none of which really had anything to do with the characters themselves.  Shrek the Third's plot revolved around securing Artie (King Arthur - what a plot twist!) as the new ruler after Fiona's father passes away.  This placed Shrek, Donkey, and Puss - the ones out to find Artie - squarely on the outside of the story.  They themselves don't have anything to do with Artie or his destiny.  They're just delivery boys, and the film suffered for it.  What we ended up with was an unfunny film featuring Shrek that doesn't actually have that much to do with him.

Honestly, Shrek Forever After should be the third and final Shrek film.  The ONLY things to carry over from Shrek the Third are that Fiona's father has passed (which is hardly even mentioned), and there are lots of babies running/flying around.  That's it.  Artie is nowhere to be seen, as if Dreamworks is hoping that you'll just forget that Shrek the Third ever happened.  I am pleased to say that Shrek Forever After makes forgetting Shrek the Third entirely possible.

The basic premise of this latest installment is that Shrek suffers through a mid-life crisis amongst the monotony of raising three children and dealing with his celebrity status.  He longs for just one day where he could be a solitary ogre again, battling angry pitchfork-wielding peasants and generally scaring the crap out of everyone.  When he encounters a seemingly random passer-by, he is given that chance in exchange for one day of his past.  The whole thing is a trap, however, and now Shrek must fight for his very existence alongside friends who, in this alternate universe, have never even met him.

The storyline is, obviously, It's a Wonderful Life without Christmas, Jimmy Stewart, or Zuzu's petals, but that's beside the point.  This has always been a series about the characters: principally, Shrek, Fiona, Donkey, and Puss-in-Boots.  These four - particularly Shrek and Fiona, both of whom seriously lacked their usual star power in their last outing - completely carry the movie, even when other characters feel overdone (Rumpelstiltskin, the villian) or underdone (the other ogres).  What would the others be like if Shrek wasn't there?  What would Fiona have done if no brave knight on a noble steed had come to rescue her?  These are the questions the movie answers.  It's nothing original - I mean, who hasn't wondered what the lives of their friends would be like if they'd never been born? - but it provides interesting insight into the four central characters as you see not only what Fiona, Donkey and Puss have become without the titular hero, but how Shrek deals with their transformations.

I still say that Shrek Forever After is nowhere near the level of Shrek 1 or 2, but it's overall a good film.  Rent it first, then see if you want to add it to your collection.  If nothing else, watch it to try to erase the painful memory of the one that came before it.  Don't bother with the 3D, though.  I still don't understand what the draw is, but it added nothing to the experience, same as always.