Shrek Forever After (Mike Mitchell, 2010)

I don’t know if anyone else other than my good friends read this blog (the likely answer is no) but for the benefit of those that happen to accidentally peruse this site whilst searching for something else entirely on Google, here’s my general feelings on the Shrek saga: I hate them. I hate the first one on the basis that, whilst it really isn’t that bad a film, everyone showered it with an immense amount of praise that it did not deserve. It has nothing on any of the Pixar back catalogue (that includes Cars) and most, if not all the “quirky” “post modern” in jokes went quickly out of date and unfunny. It’s average, the very definition of. It does not elevate itself to become a classic of animation and, to this day, it still isn’t considered an all time great (a good thing) yet, for the most part, critics and audiences came in their pants. The second one is entirely hateable, taking everything risible that made the first flawed and coasting the entire movie on it. Note to anyone ever considering making a career as a comedic writer: changing that brand name of Starbucks to Farbucks is not original, clever and, most crucially here folks, not funny.

Now, fortunately, I missed the third, concluding that have my toenails removed would be more enjoyable. Yet, I found myself on this Saturday evening confined to my home with no plans for the evening. So I head to my local multiplex only to find, by the rule of sod, that the only film showing is fucking Shrek. I buy my overpriced 3D ticket, sat in the theatre and began to sulk.

But then something happened. Whilst I can’t say that I experienced what would be considered transcendence, I realised that, with my expectations being so low, that Shrek Forever After, Shrek 4, a movie I was expecting to be as bad as the likes of Resident Evil: Apocalypse or AvP: Requiem, actually turned out to be ok. I am not endorsing the film and the other of this year’s Dreamworks outings, How to Train Your Dragon, is miles better but Shrek 4 really isn’t a travesty. Sure, the sentimentality is overly mushy to the point of vomiting (and I really felt like doing so after gorging on my comfort pick ‘n’ mix) and the jokes rely too heavily on a modern urban influence to get down wit da kids, but it’s breezy enough to be perfectly innocent and inoffensive.

I did however, with my cynical and hateful mind, find one thing to dislike in the form of the villain. Rumpelstiltskin is possibly more irritating than Mudflap and Skids from Transformers 2 and, astonishingly, managed to make Eddie Murphy’s cunt of a donkey feel like a breath of fresh air. Every scene he’s in he is insatiably grating, like a pebble stuck in your shoe only the pebble talks to you in a really irritating, whiney little bitch voice.

I digress. As good as the first and, finally, we’ve reached the last one. At least Pixar, still the masters, haven’t milked their biggest cash cow dry. There have been four Shrek films in nine years. The gap between Toy Story 2 and 3 was eleven years. Shows they didn’t deem it necessary to just keep rolling them out.

3/5