DreamWorks Review: Shrek Forever After

DreamWorks Animation’s 20th feature film

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My Opinion right after watching movie

My opinion right after watching Shrek Forever After is that while it is not as boring and stupid as the third one, it is completely unnecessary to the franchise. Shrek goes through the same lesson again, his character is about him being an ogre AGAIN, we have the “Learn that what we have is great” story, and a lot is rehashed from the first movie. While there are a few good moments, the series jumped the ship a long time ago and sunk. No creativity.

Production

The film was announced in May 2004 when Shrek 2 was released and it was announced with Shrek the Third as well. There was gonna be a fifth film, but this film was changed as a final one a year in production.

Apparently, Timberlake was seen recording lines for Timberlake (since the character was so popular) and when he was not at the premiere, people were mad and even more so when he was not seen or mentioned in the movie. His lines were most likely deleted.

Tim Sullivan was to write the script in 2005, but he was replaced by Darren Lemke and Josh Klausner, and they majorly rewrote it into the film we know today. Walt Dohrn who was in charge of the storyboards, did all the voices for the storyboards, but the studio liked his voice for Rumplestiltskin and chose him to voice him.

Story

So we start the movie with Rumpelstiltskin (Walt Dohrn) reading through some story about the story and how Fiona (Cameron Diaz)’s parents came to him to create a deal to end Fiona’s curse with King Harold (John Cleese) and Queen Lillian (Julie Andrews) giving up their kingdom, and someone randomly comes in to tell them that Fiona  has been rescued.

Wait, so they handed him their kingdom and he did not do anything about it right then and there (I know he does after, which I will get to then). In Shrek 2, they still have their kingdom and they have no worries about the deal they made. This is what happens when they make an unnecessary film and try to add detail to it, which contradicts the film.

So after he stops bitching about the deal that went wrong, he wishes Shrek (Mike Myers) was never born. So we go to Shrek who is happy with his life with his wife friends, and children, but gets more agitated as the year goes by and he does the exact same thing. Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) ruins Bob Marley’s classic reggae tune during then too. He misses being an ogre again.

Oh gosh, NOT THIS AGAIN. He goes through the same “I’m an ogre” thing for his story arc for ALL 4 MOVIES. He used it in Shrek about him being alone and doing ogre things, uses it in Shrek 2 saying that he will not put up an act for Fiona and not being accepted BECAUSE HE IS AN OGRE, and in Shrek the Third, it is used with him saying he cannot be a parent because HE IS AN OGRE. He goes through that thing for all 4 movies, and it is FUCKING OLD. He liked his situation with being liked and said that he wants people to know him first, but ugh. Rant over for now.

So it is his children’s 1st birthday and eventually snaps with an ogre bark and Fiona drags him outside to talk to him. She says he was out of line and he retaliates with saying that he liked being a REAL OGRE and told her he wants things the way they were before he met her. That is extremely harsh and contradicts his development through the movies. It is just frustrating.

So Shrek plays hooky on the rest of the birthday party (douche move) to go to Rumpelstilskin, who creates a deal for Shrek to take away a day of his life so he can a day to himself, and the deal is done.

Why would you NOT CHOOSE THE DAY YOU WANT TO BE TAKEN AWAY? And how does this all work? So he removes a day and goes to a random place to live that day? Oh chile.

So he is enjoying his day being an ogre and doing ogre things when he sees a sign of Fiona being a wanted ogre, and runs to “save her”. He gets captured by a bunch of witches and gets taken to Rumple’s castle where he is King. On the way there, he meets Donkey (Eddie Murphy) who is the same (I don’t like considering him the deuteragonist).

When he gets to the castle, Rumple tells him that he took away the day where Shrek was born so he now does not exist in the world. Rumple tells him that Fi’s parents signed the paper that all of their problems will go away but when they signed it, they disappeared, which is clearly a problem since they were in Shrek 2. So it went away when Shrek signed? Ugh. On sunrise the next day, Shrek will really disappear.

So Shrek escapes the castle with Donkey and he now misses his old life and cries. Donkey feels bad for him and decides to help him when Shrek tells him his story. Donkey sees the contract and tries to show the code, which eventually say True Love’s First Kiss.  He runs to her tower to find that she is not there. Donkey opens a trap which leads them to the ogre hideout. He tries to go to Fiona to convince her of their love, but it is very awkward.

The look I have with the humor in the film.

So Rumple prepares to send a Pied Piper to capture the ogres, while they plan to attack Rumple through a path at midnight and she’ll give a signal as to when to attack.

Shrek goes to impress Fiona and she prepares him for battle tonight. Their little sparring moment bonds them closer and she starts to fall a bit for him, though they did not fall in love that way in the real world. Kind of problematic, isn’t it? It is still a really nice moment though.

It seems like they actually tried with this movie.

The fattened-up Puss tells Shrek that Fiona is starting to like him as he saw a glow in her that the kitty never saw, and that Shrek must win her over. It is attack time and Shrek find this to be the perfect time to tell Fiona about what he loves about her, and she thinks Puss tells this. This gets Fiona to miss giving her crew the signal when Rumple came. It was really the Pied Piper in the carriage to set the Ogres for the dance trap.

This joke dies fast; really fast.

So all of the ogres get caught except for the couple and Shrek asks her to kiss him and she does, but the spell does not break. She does not believe in the love’s kiss and prince charming shit any longer, and leaves him to only lead to her capture. Shrek goes to the castle to make another deal (which he got since Rumpel offered the kingdom to capture Shrek for a reward of a deal) for all of the ogres to be free, and is furious when Fiona is not let go, but she is not all ogre.

They actually tried with the story and added some details, but the problem is that the details create a lot of holes and A LOT is rehashed from the previous three. It is unnecessary and adds little to nothing to the franchise. There is some story and can be enjoyable, but it is way too problematic.

Characters

The characters in the film went downhill. They either have rehashed storylines and nothing is added to them, or just plain bland.

Shrek is not as layered as an onion like he thought in the first film. I think I described my issues with him in the story section.

Her version in the movie is a lot more violent and kickass, but it is her. She is alright I guess.

Donkey is just mere comic relief in this film and nothing else. The same annoying, pointless Donkey.

Useless, different, but likable.

He is just annoying. He is a failed rehash of the Fairy Godmother and Lord Farquaad. He is kind of effective. You don’t love to hate him, just annoyed by him.

Animation

The animation is the typically great animation from DreamWorks and looks like the exact same quality of Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third.

Music

The score was composed by Harry Gregson-Williams, and there was not really much or any pop songs that I could discover, which is not good meaning that I forgot about the music.

Reception at Release

When the film was released on May 21, 2010, it opened at #1 and stayed there for 3 weeks, but apparently they were disappointed with the opening, expecting it to make $105 million on opening weekend. Overall, it made $238,736,787 domestically, $513,864,080 overseas, and a total of $752,600,867, making it the 47th highest-grossing film, 8th highest-grossing animated film, and the 5th highest grossing film of 2010. It is also the 2nd highest grossing animated film of the year behind Toy Story 3.

While it did phenomenal in the box office, critically….. it was a failure. It received mixed reviews, with the positive saying that it is fun and better than Shrek the Third, with the negatives saying that it is unnecessary, the story sucks, and that the franchise has jumped the shark.

It did not do well with the awards as well. It was ignored by the Academy Awards, and was nominated for 5 Annies, a Teen’s Choice, and a few others, but won a Kid’s Choice Award for Eddie Murphy’s voice acting. That is it.

Reception Today

Yall should know the DreamWorks formula by now. Huge box office=DreamWorks Classic but just because the company feels that way does not mean that the audience does. They think that it is better than Shrek the Third, but that is not saying much, and like to pretend that this film does not exist. Well the franchise did not end with this one, as they released Puss in Boots in 2011, and there might be a sequel to that.

Final Score

Story = 6/10

Characters = 3.5/10

Music = 7/10

Animation = 9/10

=25.5/40=  64% 

Next Time……

Review: November 19th. 2013

Related articles

• DreamWorks Review: Shrek the Third (animatedkid.wordpress.com)
• DreamWorks Review: Shrek 2 (animatedkid.wordpress.com)
• Underrated, Perfectly Rated, and Overrated Lists Series Edition #4 (animatedkid.wordpress.com)

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