Review of Shrek Forever After (2010) by Pur__0_0__ — 18 Aug 2021

Shrek is one of the most popular animated movie franchises of all time because of the characters. Everything that happens in the story is a result of the actions that some character take senate takes in it. Shrek wants to be left alone and does not care about anyone, because of which the first movie happens. Fiona wants her father to accept her husband for what he is because of which the second movie happens. Prince charming wants to take revenge for his mother's death and motivates evil character to do what they do, so the third movie happened. Basically Shrek is the Shrek of all animated movie franchises.

Here also the movie is driven by Shrek's reluctance. In spite of getting everything one needs in the life Shrek is not happy. As a result he sells away the day he was born to Rumpelstiltskin. This causes him to disappear from the timeline thus making him realise his true self worth. It is only after he loses Donkey and Fiona that he realises how much he loves them. And not just him, he even realises how much the ogres mean to the fairy land.

The thing I really like about Shrek movies is that they are set in the same world as all the fairy tale characters who stories we heard of as children. Fairy tales are something we emotionally relate to because of our childhood, and also don't get offended if someone makes fun of it. This is used very nicely in Shrek movies except the third one where they just make jokes that could have worked in literally any other film. Here I really liked how Shrek and Donkey met each other for the first time in this new life and how Shrek tries to meet Fiona again (though I didn't like that "My donkey fell in your waterhole" joke).

The thing I didn't like about this movie is that it did not work too much over the franchise. It just reiterated the same Fiona story. This is a problem with the last two movies. They haven't established more of the world other than what was done from the first two movies. And even if it did it wouldn't have really mattered. This movie played it very safe after The Third's failure by making all the events disappear, just in case the movie isn't liked that much. This wouldn't have been a problem, except this is supposed to be the last movie of the franchise.

It's a pity this is the last movie of the franchise, because the franchise could have been revived if there were more such movies. I hope if there is a fifth Shrek movie, they make it about Shrek moving to Far, Far Away so that their children have a better upbringing. So they behave in an ogre manner at school and Shrek learns to be a better person so that his children have a good role model.