Shrek, rhymes with blech, wants to be a big meanie again. Fatherhood and the frantic drudgery of domesticity - he's married to fellow ogre Fiona and juggles house chores with the demands of three goo-goo-gassy babies - have sanded the edge off the former ruler of forest ferocity. Shrek longs for his days as a freewheeling bachelor, stomping and roaring and terrorizing villagers, his pert snail ears wiggling. They've been jettisoned to once upon a time.
"Shrek Forever After," the final chapter in the uneven DreamWorks franchise and the most enjoyable summer picture so far, begins as a familiar fatherhood comedy. It might be the first movie to show a fairy-tale beast changing diapers. It's played as Shrek's midlife crisis, a defeat by disappointment. "You used to be so fierce when you were a real ogre," a fan tells him. "Now," Shrek huffs, "I'm just a jolly green joke." But: He's not so jolly.
Like Marley's ghost or a devious version of Clarence the angel enters Rumpelstiltskin, a conniving brat who tricks folks into signing rigged "magical" contracts that reliably stick it to the signers. Rumpelstiltskin (the crinkly voice of Walt Dohrn) is a palm-rubbing imp, skipping about and doing malicious jigs. He looks like David Bennent , the young man who played the stunted Oskar in "The Tin Drum," if he were a Rankin-Bass puppet.
He's a freak with freakish powers. He doesn't like Shrek (backstory goes here), so he persuades the ogre to ink a contract that will let Shrek be the liberated monster he once was for one day.
Comparisons to "It's a Wonderful Life" are surely deliberate, showing Shrek (an emotive Mike Myers) what life without Fiona (Cameron Diaz) and his pals Donkey (machine-gun mouthed Eddie Murphy) and Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) would be like, and how Rumpelstiltskin, now king of Far Far Away, has turned the place into a wretched evil empire that has banished orgres.
Shrek's always been a softy at heart, and he comes across here like the monster played by James Gandolfini in "Where the Wild Things Are" - sensitive, thoughtful, with a ragged edge of rage that can be set off. But Shrek's a lover, a tender romantic, having to woo, all over again, Fiona, who in this alternate Far Far Away doesn't know Shrek. She's also the leader of the armed underground ogre resistance set to topple Rumpelstiltskin's reign, providing rousing action featuring an armada of hideous, green-faced witches out of Oz.
The politics of uprising are played broadly, and the silver bullet to end Shrek's mirror-life nightmare resides in smoochy lips. "Shrek Forever After," like a good fairy story, presents a moral fable of appreciating what you have and loving the one you're with.
It's gentler than previous "Shreks," tamping down the snark and the strenuous pop culture name-dropping that went several winks too far. And it displays scant fatigue; the action, comedy and romance swirl nicely. It's well-tuned to kids and adults. Children's squeals and candy-breathed guffaws echoed through a preview screening.
Naturally, the sumptuous computer animation looks terrific, especially in 3-D, which flows with creamy facility. If it's not quite Pixar - what is? - it's a pleasant outing that splits its thumps between barreling action and beating enamored hearts.
'Shrek Forever After'
Our grade: B
Genres: Comedy, Fantasy, Animated
Running Time: 95 min
MPAA rating: PG
Release Date: May 21, 2010
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