Shrek Forever After

Film: Shrek Forever After
Cast: voice of Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Antonio Banderas, Eddie Murphy
Genre: Animation
Direction: Mike Mitchell
Duration: 1 hour 33 minutes
Critic's Rating: 3 stars


Story: Shrek is bored with domesticity. He hates changing diapers, celebrating his kids' birthdays and settling down to a happily-ever-after life with wife Fiona and his family of three little ogres. So, he decides to go back to his carefree ogre days and signs a contract, bartering away his present life for a picture perfect past, with the evil Rumplestiltskin. But he soon begins to miss his family and wants to get back to the present. Is there a way back....

Movie Review: Midlife crisis, Shrek (Mike Myers)? Yup. Specially when you are forced to rise and shine everyday with the cheery cackle of your brood; when you must burp and feed them and dabble with ogre shit relentlessly; when you must parrot `Ever After' each time wife Fiona (Cameron Diaz) mumbles `Happily' on the dinner table; when you can't snooze in your favourite chair because high-spirited friends, Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Puss (Antonio Banderas) want to spent some quality buddy time with you. And more importantly, when you are denied that one single pleasure of yours due to pressing house work: a relaxed mud bath, while the Carpenters blare their popular `Top of the World' number.

So what does our friendly neighbourhood ogre do to get back his roar and stop being a jolly green joke? He signs a contract with the wicked character from the Brothers Grimm, Rumplestiltskin, turns his back to his friends and family, yells on wife Fiona and returns to a time when he wasn't born. This being a time when Donkey was a slave to the witches, Puss was an overweight domestic cat and Fiona was leading a band of rebel ogres to free Far, Far Away land from the misrule of Rumplestiltskin. But it doesn't take long before the green ogre realises he has ended up with a raw deal. Since he hasn't actually been born, the day will end with his end too and he will never be able to return to his family unless he manages to snatch one true kiss with Fiona. Now that ain't an easy task because Fiona is in militant feminist form, too involved in insurgency to focus on romance. How does he convince her about the happily-ever-after that lies ahead....

The popular franchise that made a hero of an anti-hero still retains its quintessential charm, even though an element of deja vu has begun to set in. The voice-overs by Hollywood biggies, Myers, Diaz, Murphy and Banderas, is top class and the 3D immensely electrifying. More than the lead characters, it is Donkey and Puss who fill you with delight and end up as the more colourful characters. Of course Dreamworks' animation is as usual splendid and kaleidoscopic.

Go watch your favourite ogre live out the ugly-is-beautiful revisionist tale, once again. And make you feel good about it.