"Shrek Forever After": It's a Wonderful Strife

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Monday, 24 May 2010 23:27

Written by Frank Lovece

Directed by Mike Mitchell
Written by Josh Klausner, Darren Lemke, based on the book Shrek! by William Steig
Starring Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Antonio Banderas, Walt Dohrn, Julie Andrews, John Cleese, Jon Hamm, Jane Lynch, Craig Robinson

Once upon a time there was the exquisite Shrek and the hilarious Shrek 2. Then darkness fell over the kingdom, and the heavy-handed, horribly sitcomy Shrek the Third strode hard upon the land. But then somewhere, a magic wand waved, and soon goodness and laughter and the sharp, polished wit of filmmakers trying once again to be fresh and funny rather than coasting on momentum and goodwill reigned. And there was much rejoicing. Yay. Verily.

"Fresh" might seem not the right word to describe a film that utilizes the most trusty plot device since that of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, namely the what-if-I'd-never-been born conceit of Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life. But a device is just a tool -- it's all in how you use it. Despite a tiny bit of shtick here and there in Shrek Forever After, director Mike Mitchell and company have given us a story of genuine, grownup romance and regret, suffused with a middle-aged longing that has nothing to do with the slow-burn, poor-put-upon-dad antics of the execrable third movie, which might as well have been a 1950s episode of TV's The Life of Riley -- talk about a revoltin' development.

No, here, instead, bitter real-life emotions anchor the jumping-off point, and yet somehow the tragedy of everyday life becomes not only roaringly funny but also gets camouflaged enough that kids too young to understand can simply enjoy the colorful characters running through the plot mechanics, and maybe years later will see how much deeper it all was.

Shrek (voice of Mike Myers), once a feared ogre outside the fairy-tale kingdom of Duloc, has now become, to his exasperated irritation, a cuddly celebrity in the once faraway kingdom of Far Far Away (which is now within walking distance of Shrek's original swamp—let's just call it geographical magic). What with infant triplets, neighbors who barge in and make themselves at home every night, tour-carriage announcers invading his privacy and an endless battle with backed-up toilets, it seems more or less reasonable for him to blow his top at a birthday party where strangers and friends alike demands things from him constantly. When his wife, the ogress princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz), chastises and guilt-trips him for it, showing no empathy, it's no wonder he storms off -- or that he becomes easy prey for the Machiavellian Rumpelstiltskin (the Paul Reubens-like voice of Walt Dohrn, one of the lead animators).

That leprechaun-like goblin sweet-talks Shrek into a disastrous deal: The ogre can have one day all to himself, scaring people and being a carefree bachelor, in exchange for losing one day in his life. Of course, that turns out to be the day he was born, and so when Shrek's present is over, so is he.

The deliciousness of what-if universes never gets old, and the filmmakers create a logical Dystopia that'd have made Fritz Lang proud. Rumpel is now king of a decaying kingdom, where inside the castle is a nonstop party that appears to be, hilariously, a lesbian witches’ rave -- there certainly aren't any warlocks around, and the animators could have drawn them easily enough. What a riot! The Gingerbread Man (Conrad Vernon, a co-director of Shrek 2) is now a gladiator fighting animal crackers, Puss in Boots (a scene-stealing Antonio Banderas) is now literally a fat cat, and Fiona's become essentially Xena, Warrior Princess, leading an ogre underground in revolution against Rumpel.

Throughout, the CGI characters have more expressiveness than ever, and carry such a grounded solidity that when a flying dragon lands, you can almost feel the weight. Unfortunately, the 3D effects at an IMAX screening fell flat, except for the startlingly lifelike InTru3D logo.

The studio has billed this as the final movie in the Shrek series -- we'll see. But if this is indeed the final Shrek, it all ends happily ever after

For more by Frank Lovece: FrankLovece.com

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