Shrek: Forever After (Shrek Goes Fourth)

Shrek: Forever After (Shrek Goes Fourth)

Well, this fourth Shrek movie in the franchise isn’t as dull as the third movie, but the story still suffers from a tired and bland script.  The movie lacks the backhanded comments about the Disney Cooperation that the first two movies had.  And, yet there is a bit more heart in this darker sequel in the franchise.  And, I really liked the darker elements within the movie.

Basically, Rumpelstiltskin (Rump) wants to seek revenge on Shrek for throwing out his plans for taking over Far-Far away.  So, he devises a plan to completely wipe Shrek out of the timeline and create a different timeline without Shrek.  Shrek, feeling a mid-life crisis, is tricked by Rump into a signing a magical contract.  Shrek discovers that he now lives in a dark twisted timeline where no one recognizes him except for Rump. 

The animation models are definitely more detailed and the faces are more expressive.  The CGI animation work certainly has come a long way for Dreamworks.  I’ve never had a problem with the animation in the Shrek movies; sure they will never have the amazing designs from the Pixar movies.  They’re acceptable here.

A minor weakness in the movie is the villain of Rump isn’t scary or sinister enough like the first two main villains in movies 1 and 2.  There is potential in the story for Rump to turn into a greater threat.  However, I did like that Rump was a trickster that used guile to gain his motives. 

The movie’s weakest point is the extremely weak script.  Sometime around third movie, the series lost its biting edge.  These movies used to make fun of the Disney Company.  That isn’t the case anymore.  However, the darker elements in the fourth film do need to be commended.  However, the jokes fall flat and seem to be created for the mass crowd. 

It is interesting that instead of bashing the tropes of fairy tales, this movie fully embraces them through the dark twisted alt-universe the film spends most of its time in.  Spending most of the franchise parodying fairy tales, it ends in a rather standard fairy tale manner. 

-Mike Myers:  He sounds rather bored with the voice at this point.  I guess he is still a little bitter over the failure of The Love Guru.

-Donkey:  It looks like they changed the texture of his hair for the alt-world.  It seems rougher.  Also, I like that Shrek and Donkey still become friends in the alt-universe.

-There is a death of a minor character in the alt-world, which I found very funny. 

Shrek 4 is light years ahead of Shrek 3, but the series still hasn’t recovered creatively.  It is a nice wrap up of the series with a nice message about love and loving someone no matter what universe they’re in.  I’m satisfied with this being the ending to main franchise.

Grade: B-