My Review of Shrek Forever After · 7:05pm Jun 28th, 2022
Rating Scale:
12/10—a complete masterpiece; flawless and outstanding
11/10—Excellent, near-perfect film
10/10—the standard rating; awesome film with a couple of flaws
9/10—a wonderful film with several flaws
8/10–a great film with numerous flaws but not enough to ruin it
7/10—a fun and entertaining movie; not great but still enjoyable
6/10—a slightly above average film; it is something I might watch again
5/10—mediocre movie; not awful but not great either
4/10—a below average film; it could have been much better
3/10—a bad film; poorly written and poorly executed
2/10—a very bad movie; the few good things in the movie overshadowed by the bad things
1/10—a terrible movie; a total waste of time
0/10—a worthless piece of abomination; should have never been made
Greetings, everyone! This is Mr. J back with another movie review for today! This afternoon, I will be reviewing the fourth installment of this franchise entitled Shrek Forever After! In my opinion, this was a massive improvement over the third film and was everything that the latter should have been. It felt like it should have been the third installment instead of being the fourth in the series because it actually follows up on Shrek's character and does an excellent deep-dive into his character arch with a much more consistent narrative flow. Seriously, if you just take out the third movie, it wouldn't really change anything especially since this film hardly references or even remotely mentions any of the characters from the previous movie (unless you count the end credits). It is such a breath of fresh air to have a movie that actually focuses on its main important characters.
This film shows us that Shrek is unhappy in becoming a tamed family man and doing the same family stuff every day without getting the time to do the things he wants to do. He reflects back on the old days when he was a "real" ogre who terrified everyone around him. He soon encounters a deceitful midget who promises one day in which he can spend time in being what he used to be on the condition of signing a contract to give him a day in which the day of his birth would be erased. As Shrek finds himself in an alternate universe where everything he loves is gone, he must convince the alternate Fiona of being his true love to lift the curse and bring him back home before it's too late.
Words cannot express how phenomenal the writing is in this movie. The filmmakers and the writers gave each character enough growth and chemistry with each other and had great lines of dialogue. The voice acting was immaculate as well; Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, and Antonio Banderas absolutely nailed their voice acting for their respective roles and gave them adequate emotion to solidify how seriously solid the story was. Walt Dohrn was awesome in the role of Rumpelsiltskin; that villain was both funny, menacing, cunning, evil, and wholly entertaining. In fact, he is the second best Shrek villain, following the Fairy Godmother. At least I can actually take him seriously as an antagonist unlike some bratty prince I know.
This film had, by far, the highest stakes out of all four movies; you can actually feel the tension, the danger, and the emotional struggles of Shrek. He also learns and realizes that the best things he had were right in front of him the whole time, yet he kept dwelling on the past and ignored what really mattered the most. I really loved the approach they made for this movie.
Now, while I love this film, it does have its flaws; there were a few moments here and there that felt a little cringeworthy, and some of the jokes fell flat and were unfunny. But still, the light-hearted comedy was overall good, the adventure was amazing, the soundtrack thereof was well-composed, and other members of the voice cast did a great job. But the only question I have is the appearance of the other ogres during the end credits. How did these exact same characters show up if they are from the alternate universe that Rumpel created? That just felt so last minute and out of nowhere, but I guess they already existed in Shrek's world and they now decided to show up for Shrek and his family? Yeah, that was just dumb in my opinion.
Nevertheless, it is a wonderful improvement over the last movie for sure and gets a solid 9/10!
Peace!
I don´t really remember what happened much, because I only saw it once. However, Rumplestinskin was a smart villain. Great review.
I´m curious, did you watch the Puss in Boots spin off? I´m just saying because this year the sequel is coming out so I kind of revisited it.
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Yes, I watched the spin-off long ago.
In my opinion, “Shrek Forever After” was the very best film in the franchise since the first. Word cannot even describe how much I enjoyed this sequel, and everything about it felt like it was the right place to be concluding Shrek’s overall story.
People also say that “Shrek 2” was the best sequel in the series, but to me…that credit strongly goes to “Shrek Forever After”. Plus, Rumpelstiltskin was the very best villain in the entire franchise.
One of those rare instances when the fourth installment of a film series is really damn good.
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Oh! What did you think of it?
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From what I remember, it was pretty good.
I say Shrek Forever After is a great movie and Rumpelsiltskin is that type of villain I really enjoy