3:55pm Tuesday 20th July 2010
By Rhian Morgan
This final foray into the world of loveable ogre Shrek references Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life in an animated 3D fairy-tale world.
But although Forever After is visually exciting, in a format perfectly suited to the franchise, it lacks the charm of Capra’s original.
Shrek (voiced by Mike Myers) is suffering a mid-life crisis, with mewling babies and a long-suffering wife, Fiona (Cameron Diaz). At breaking point with his saccharine-coated life, he meets the conniving Rumpelstiltskin (voiced by brilliant newcomer Walt Dohrn), who offers a deal: he will gift Shrek one tantalising day as a scary ogre if he agrees to sign away a day of his childhood.
Shrek agrees to the Faustian pact, blind to Rumpelstiltskin’s devious plan: to erase the day Shrek was born and thereby alter the future. Shrek must join forces with Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and a rather bloated Puss In Boots (Antonio Banderas) to break the pact before the sands in Rumpelstiltskin’s oversized hourglass run out.
Taking Shrek back to his (box office) glory days is an intelligent decision. Donkey is on fine funny form once more, while Rumpelstiltskin is the cute cartoon face of evil and will appeal to big and little kids.
However, the original charm is tarnished by cheap jokes and repetition. Puss may now be too big for his boots but surely this doesn’t mean his character should be relegated to the bottom divison of bargain-basement humour.
Other scenes that get a laugh first time round are rammed home repeatedly – child-like humour has deteriorated into childish quips. And Fiona is enthused with a little too much gung ho girlpower to warm your heart.
However, there is a lot to like and I doubt Shrek fans will be too disappointed.
Shrek’s final outing might not be his finest but it does give us a glimpse of what made us fall him love with him all over again.
On general release.
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