My Movie Review on Shrek Forever After · 2:58pm Feb 26th, 2020
Top of the morning to ya, my good lads and lasses.
This is your friendly film, TV show, and episode reporter here with another review.
Today, for my 119th film analysis, as well as my 11th and final installment of this year's "February Festivity", I'm gonna give you guys my take of "Shrek Forever After".
Here's the summary of this tale:
After all of his adventures from before, Shrek is now living the high life as Fiona's husband, a father of 3 kids, a friend to all, and a celebrity amongst the land.
As time goes by, though, Shrek begins to long for the days of when he was feared and hated. He no longer feels like a real ogre and regrets ever rescuing Fiona from that tower.
However, Shrek later meets up with the devious and deceitful Rumpelstiltskin, who offers to grant him a day to be a real ogre if he gives him a day from Shrek's past via magical contract.
After Shrek signs the contract, his wish is granted, but...it turns out that the day he gave Rumpelstiltskin was the day of his birth, and the contract whisked him to a reality where Rumpel is supreme ruler of Far Far Away and Shrek never existed. Now, Shrek must find a way to terminate the spell of the contract he signed or else he'll fade away from existence and Rumpel will remain king forever.
Will Shrek break the curse and save the day once more? Or will evil have the upper hand this time?
The biggest reason for why I reviewed this film for my "February Festivity" was because the relationship between Shrek and Fiona plays such a huge part in it, and I thought that it would be perfect as the final installment based on it being the last film in the series. At least to date anyway.
I really must say, this movie was an absolute pleasure to watch. A great conclusion to a fun series too, if I may add.
For instance, the direction by Mike Mitchell, and the story and screenplay by Josh Klausner and Darren Lamke, were marvelously accomplished. I mean, yes, it did have this "It's A Wonderful Life" kind of concept and vibe to it, but yet...the premise was still pretty unique all on its own, and there were several elements that helped it to be really fresh. Plus, Mitchell and the writers did a brilliant job at making this movie funny, because none of the jokes felt out of place and were marvelously executed. There was even genuine heart, emotion, and moral throughout the movie, which was strong enough to tug at the heartstrings.
The animation of this film was amazing as well. As the first film in the franchise to not have the involvement of Pacific Data Images, I was deeply impressed with how Dreamworks was able to retain the look and style of the other three movies while upgrading it to where it seemed bigger than before. The cinematography made the look all-the-more entrancing, if I may add.
The voice acting, casting, characters, and character development were incredible with a capital 'I', really. I loved how the cast members appeared to be having a lot of fun with their material, deeply throwing themselves into their characters and passionately making every moment their characters were given count. For instance, Eddie Murphy and Walt Dohrn put terrific energy, personality, and comedic-timings into the characters of Donkey and Rumpelstiltskin, and Antonio Banderas sounded like he was having all the fun in the world playing a fat version of Puss in Boots. Plus, the character development in articulation, especially from that of Shrek and Fiona, was excellent.
Finally, the music that was composed by Harry Gregson-Williams was as magnificent as ever. His ability to emotionally invest himself into composing the score never ceased to amaze me, and despite the use of pop culture songs being slightly rare, there was still some enjoyable use of them. Along with that, the film had a pretty fun rendition of "Shake Your Groove Thing".
In the end, "Shrek Forever After" was the perfect ending for our favorite ogre, and it's the very best in the franchise since that of the first film too.
So, I rate "Shrek Forever After" five out of five stars. It's a definite improvement over "Shrek 2" and "Shrek the Third", that's for sure.
Out of all his enemies, Rumpelstiltskin was Shrekâs most dangerous one yet.
I watched it in theaters, and I loved it! Rumpelstiltskin is my favorite of all Shrek villains because of his actions, and according to fan theories, he's responsible for all of Fairy Godmother's evil conspiracy on sending Prince Charming to 'rescue' Fiona, while Rumpelstiltskin dethroned the king and queen in order to plot on world domination.
Shrek Forever After is a bit of an underrated gem for me. I wouldn't go and see it again voluntarily; there are better things. But I still enjoyed it, and would enjoy it again if someone else played it for me.