Cinema Verdict Review: Shrek: The Final Chapter

Shrek: The Final Chapter

OPENING: 05/21/2010

STUDIO: DreamWorks

RUN TIME: 93 min

ACCOMPLICES:
Trailer, Official Site

The Charge
It ain’t ogre… til it’s ogre

Opening Statement
Once it was supposed to be called Shrek Goes Forth. Then it became Shrek Forever After. Now, if I’m not mistaken, the official title is Shrek: The Final Chapter. Okay. Whatever it is, I’m quite certain that it’s the fourth film in the Shrek franchise and that it’s supposed to be the last Shrek film, probably, maybe.

Facts of the Case
This installment finds Shrek (Mike Myers) precisely where we left him: as a happily married husband and father living in the now-peaceful land of Far, Far Away. Well, he’s happy for a while, anyway. It seems the whole routine of having a family and raising kids is starting to get to him, as he has to deal with one stressful situation after another. In addition, the once-terrifying ogre is feeling a little emasculated, as the local villagers now regard him as a little more than a lovable mascot. Shrek yearns for the days when people feared him and he was able to get some peace and quiet. After an unfortunate fight with Fiona (Cameron Diaz) at a birthday party, Shrek signs a deal with the mischievous Rumpelstiltskin (Walt Dohrn) that will allow him to become an honest-to-goodness terrifying ogre once again for a whole day. In exchange, Shrek has to sacrifice one day from his past. Alas, Rumpelstiltskin chooses the day of Shrek’s birth, meaning that everyone’s favorite ogre was never even born. Now Shrek is stuck in an alternate universe in which he is shown what life would have been like if he had never existed. To make matters worse, unless Shrek can share True Love’s Kiss with Fiona (thus breaking the contract with Rumpelstiltskin) within the next 24 hours, he will disappear forever.

The Evidence
Shrek: The Final Chapter is a sad, somber movie – partially due to the darker tone, partially due to the manner in which it makes us reflect on how far the series has fallen. There’s a scene in the film that nicely reflects the essential problem. Shrek needs to kiss Fiona in order to break the curse and restore things to the way they were. He badgers her and badgers her until she finally agrees to give him a kiss. Alas, nothing happens. That’s because it wasn’t True Love’s Kiss. You can’t force a genuine moment of romance; it has to happen organically. Likewise, the filmmakers try to recapture the success of the first film by repeating events from that movie: we see Shrek as a grumpy ogre having to win the heart of Fiona and become friends with Donkey (Eddie Murphy) all over again. Unfortunately, these efforts feel blatantly obvious and forced. It’s hard to recapture magic, and the filmmakers aren’t up to the task.

The problem is that the franchise just doesn’t have anything interesting to do with their characters. Honestly, their story was pretty much finished by the end of the first movie, and ever since they’ve just sort of been hanging around, milking the old cash cow. Shrek was a witty, rude fairy tale parody about a nasty ogre who was redeemed by the power of love. The second film managed to fare reasonably well due to some sharp humor and the welcome addition of Puss n’ Boots (Antonio Banderas), but none of the sequels can legitimately provide justification for their existence. The sequels exist in an awkward, post-Happily Ever After world in which the characters are forced into odd, unlikely situations generated for no particularly good reason.

The film does a rather good job early on of demonstrating just how miserable Shrek feels; his life really does look like an endless stream of stress-inducing chaos. He wants it all to go away, and to a certain degree, so do we. We miss the grumpy ogre of the first Shrek film. Alas, the It’s a Wonderful Life-inspired story predictably demonstrates that while Shrek didn‘t know how good his single life was until it was gone, he really didn‘t know how good his life as a family man was until it was gone. So, we can’t feel good about getting the cantankerous, independent Shrek back because he can’t feel good about being that character anymore. It’s not really a spoiler to tell you that Shrek eventually gets his life back, or that he’s extremely happy when this happens… but a thoughtful viewer won’t be able to help but feel that all of that stress and frustration is going to come back after the initial high of coming back home wears off. The film feels like a weary, frustrated acknowledgement that the filmmakers know there just isn’t anything left for the character to do. So, they’re just going to try to repeat a few successful things one last time and call it a wrap.

All of that being said, the film does actually work a little bit better than Shrek the Third, as the jokes are a bit funnier and the premise is a little less flimsy. All of the voice actors are still in fine form (particularly Banderas, who has more or less owned every scene he has appeared in over the course of this franchise), and the new characters like Walt Dohrn’s Rumpelstiltskin, Jon Hamm’s Brogan and Craig Robinson’s Cookie aren’t bad. The dated pop culture references the series is known for are toned down a bit, but so are the sharp jabs in the direction of traditional fairy tale films. Perhaps the most damning thing that can be said about Shrek: The Final Chapter is that the series has finally become what it initially set out to lampoon.

Closing Statement
The film is engaging and reasonably well-crafted, serving as a better conclusion to the series than the third film… still, it feels like too little, too late.

The Verdict
6/10

• “”>