Shrek Forever After
Wed, May 19, 2010 
It’s always hard to say goodbye. Especially when you’re saying goodbye to one of your favourite films franchises.
The first Shrek was good, the second was great and the third was very “meh”, with this fourth and supposedly final chapter they’ve out done their most recent predecessor, but fall short of the greatness from the second. That’s not to say that Shrek Forever After was a failure, but you’re still sad to see the characters go.
Things have changed a lot since we last saw Shrek, he now has three kids, he’s married, and pretty well hates his routine life as a “family man”. While at the fairy tale version of Chuck-E-Cheeses, Shrek has a nervous breakdown, than erupts on the guests of his kids’ birthday party. After he storms out and then takes off he meets Rumpelstiltskin, who dupes him into signing a dubious contract, then sends him to an alternate reality where he hasn't rescued Fiona, or met any of his friends, and Rumpelstiltskin is king of Far Far away.
The only way for Shrek to return everything to normal, is to have one true love kiss with Fiona. The only problem with this is, Fiona doesn’t love him anymore, because she has no idea who he is, and he wasn’t there to rescue her from the tower. Shrek enlists the help of Donkey (Eddie Murphy) who has no idea who Shrek is and is reluctant to help. Puss and Boots has put on an enormous amount of weight and lives with Fiona and the “Ogre Resistance” she now leads.
The most fun in Shrek 4 is being re-introduced to the core characters all over again. In the alternate reality none of them have met one another yet, and their paths are entirely different. The only person who knows how things should actually be is Shrek.
There are a few new characters brought in, aside from the obviously new bad guy Rumpelstiltskin, but very little is done in introducing them.
The jokes and subtle adult humor that made the first three appeal to all ages, and made up most of the plot, are almost entirely gone aside from one Vagina and one racist joke.
The animation, even the 3D was done extremely well. The 3D is so good that at times it takes you completely out of the story, and becomes somewhat distracting, but even still it overall adds to the quality and enjoyment of the film as a whole.
My one complaint if I can even call it that would be the story ending so quickly. This is not at all due to the pacing, but just the length of the movie being so short. I guess we can blame the short attention spans of today’s youth for that.
I’m giving Shrek Forever After an overall 7/10
Reader Comments (15)
Well at least your saying it's better then the third one. I loved the first two, but the third one sucked. I'd also hoped it would be at least 1hr40min or so...being that its the "final chapter"
What vagina and racist jokes are you talking about?? I didn't see anything like that at all, and I thought the length was good, any longer it would have dragged on too much.
@DAVE
Donkey fell in your waffle hole, and what you talkin bout cracka...do you know the scenes I'm talking about?
ohhh Yeah lmao
I didn't catch that before, very subtle and clever
I thought it was really good, but its over very fast. Sucks that this is the last one
I thought this didn't come close to the other ones. I really hope they dont really end it here. The only good thing about it was the 3D
I loved it. This is easily the best one, it's just said they aren't doing anymore:(
I heard its doing terrible already according ERC. regardless, I think I'll still take the kids to it tomorrow. Nice review.
it's very sad that 72million estimtaed opening weekend is looked at as a failure. I saw it, and I agree it may not be as good as the second one, but it is still very good. Theres no doubt in my mind this will turn a profit just like every other one did
Dave I didn't say it was a failure, but when its projected to do 100 mill and comes back 30mill short, noone at the studio is jumoing for joy
I don't mind Shrek, but nothing dreamworks is doing even matches up to Pixar. When Toy Story 3 hits, it's going to crush this. I'm a little suprised though, I thought this would do 100 over the long weekend, now it might pull 80 incl monday...wow
I watched the first three before going to this yesterday. I realized something, the animation is funnier than the jokes in this one. Donkey clopping away killed me, but some of the humor was so-so.
I still liked it eitherway. I'll have to buy it when it comes out.
The humor wasn't funny at all this time around. I was seriously let down by this. What a shitty way to end a successful franchise. I can't wait for toy story 3.
The animators did do an amazing job, but I was thinking about it, and it felt like in some part they had things flying and what not just to enhance the 3D...I do agree with Crystal too, Donley was by far the funniest, not puss.
Why does everyone keep bringing up toy story 3? This will do fine long before toystory hits