Shrek 4
You know, I hate movie sequels. Normally after the second movie (or in rare cases third movie) I wish that the string would lie down and die. But nope, most studios insist on squeezing every last cent out of its market whore. Take Spider-Man 3, the other two movies rocked and this one sucked. Take the Twilight saga; since it’s based on a book and for some reason makes money we have to be tortured with every bit of tween porn it produces. Take the Harry Potter series; which is two for four in the good sequels count (I haven’t seen Year 6 yet). How about the Home Alone movies, all the Roland Emmrich movies, and last but not least the Transformers movies. Almost all these series should’ve ended after the second film (or in Twilight’s case, never existed). But the one normal series that seemed to actually have an excuse to go beyond two movies is the Shrek movies. Got what you asked for didn’t you? A whiny, puberty-inflicted Justin Timberlake character, a plot that’s pretty predictable, but at least it had the good ol’ fairy tale satire we’ve come to love from Shrek. This should’ve been the honorable and merciful way to send off the Jolly Green Giant. Right?
No! Apparently Dreamworks wanted to kill him, but not metaphorically, but literally by producing a fourth movie, thankfully called Shrek: The Final Chapter or Shrek 4.
. The film directly satirizes Frank Capra’s, It’s a Wonderful Life. If your parents have not made you watch it, the film is based on the question, what would happen if you were never born? You see, Shrek gets fed up with dealing with the ♫papa-paparazzi♫, and wishes he could relive the days he felt alive as an ogre. So he gives the world the finger and signs a pact with Rumplestiltskin to do just that in exchange for a day from his life. However, Rumpy conveniently has a grudge against Shrek for causing him to lose a deal that would allow him to take over the land (OF COURSE!) and takes the day Shrek was born. This causes a time paradox where the land has turned into Saudi Arabia
The main problem with this movie is the fact that the setting has so much gritty detail. You think this would be a good thing, but nope, it sucks all the life out of the movie instead. This is way darker than it looks in the trailers. Don’t believe me? Well to start the king and queen are MURDERED in the most surprisingly gruesome fashion by the fire head midget!
You know, for kids!
The series that had some of the brightest, cheeriest, and most happy-go-lucky of environments has moved up to sick murdering of characters! You can’t not make that look extremely awkward!
And if that wasn’t enough, you ever watch that one comedian who just kept using the same joke over and over again until somebody through a tomato at him? Yeah, the movies jokes are pretty tired subjects. They’re predictable. REALLY predictable. As in I can play a game to show you how stale the joke material is. It’s a wonderful game and I like to call it:
What’s the Joke That Comes Out of This Sentence?
Munchkin man hires the Pied Piper to capture the ogres.
Answer: The Pied Piper forces them to break dance!
If you guessed right, you get a gold star for this episode! If not...
Thanks for playing! Tune in next time, which will probably be in a couple lines.
There is no excuse for such poor use of joke material in this movie. I could think of thousands of possible jokes to use in this plot scenario, like cameo appearances by the past villains? John Lithgow can’t be that hard for you guys to get! Even the altered characters don’t work well; Fiona is now the (hot?) leader of the Ogre Resistance who can kick Shrek’s hine but get’s defeated by hypnotism (FAIL!), Donkey is just a wagon puller, Puss in Boots is now obese (not clever but funny), and Gingerbread Man now fights animal crackers for a living (clever but not funny).Like the rest of the movie, there was no spirit in building these ideas. These are just so generic, why couldn’t they come up with the idea to do something like putting Buzz Lightyear in Spanish mode in Toy Story 3? Yeah, let’s compare a Dreamworks movie to a Pixar movie!
In Toy Story 3 (a great movie by the way) I would never expect Buzz in Spanish mode as a plot/joke device and they EXCUTE said device perfectly! As you can see
EXCUTION and SUBTILTY are what make a movie grrrrreat! It’s like Microsoft and Apple; one cares only for profit and makes outrageously priced crap that doesn’t work, while the other cares about quality and really makes awesome products. One also constantly rips off the other to make it LOOK like a quality product, and has committed the sin of filling in the #1 spots on my least favorite lists.
But… I must end on a light note. At least every character does give a good performance (except for Rumpy, who I find scary), and at least it’s trying. The painful thing about this movie is the fact that I don’t believe it’s necessary story-wise. All the plot is is a time loop which ends up unwound at the end of the movie. Why draw out a plot for no point? Answer: TO SELL TOYS!!!!!
This movie is a complete waste of time. Not because of bad acting, but because of the pointlessness of the whole movie, the worn out jokes, the disturbingly dark material, and the lack of investment in anything this movie has to offer. Watch it if you enjoyed the other Shrek movies at your leisure. But if this will be your first Shrek movie, you’re gonna ruin the rest of the series which truly are great movies (possible exception of Shrek 3). Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to report two 1st Degree murders to proper authorities.
4*/10*
