Shrek Forever After (DreamWorks Animation, Pacific Data Images, Paramount, 2010)

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2024 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved

Last night (Monday, February 26) my husband Charles and I watched the fourth and, so far, last of the Shrek movies: Shrek Forever After (2010), which had a new director (Mike Mitchell) and writers (Josh Klausner and Darren Lemke) and was at least marginally better than its immediate predecessor, Shrek the Third. Given that we’ve watched all four Shrek movies in the space of a little over two weeks, we’ve been hyper-sensitive at the various lacunae between them, including one big one. King Harold of Far, Far Away (John Cleese) not only returned to life in this film but resumed his human form instead of being a frog, his original form to which he reverted at the end of Shrek the Third. (I had assumed he’d died at the end of that one, too, but here he was, alive, reasonably well and once again human. My husband Charles read the above and said he thought that the scene was a flashback that occurred before Shrek the Third.) At first Shrek Forever After seemed a bit on the dull side, but it quickly livened up with the story’s villain, Rumplestiltskin (Walt Dohrn), tricking Shrek (Mike Myers) into signing a contract by which he was never born. The film then turns into a screamingly funny parody of Frank Capra’s 1946 feel-good classic It’s a Wonderful Life, as Shrek enters a decadent makeover of Far, Far Away and Klausner and Lemke effectively recycle the culture shock Capra and his writers, Jo Swerling, Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich, put George Bailey (James Stewart) through as he gets his wish that he’d never been born. (I loved the director’s cut of the film The Butterfly Effect because it was essentially It’s a Wonderful Life in reverse: that film’s protagonist realizes that the world would indeed have been better off if he’d never been born.) Rumpelstiltskin reigns over a seedy version of Far, Far Away and his principal courtiers are five Wizard of Oz-style wicked witches (Lake Bell, Kathy Griffin, Mary Kay Place, Kristen Schaal and Meredith Vieira), one of whom he dissolves in water just for the hell of it.

It turns out that the only way Shrek can return to his former existence is to get a redemptive kiss from his wife Fiona (Cameron Diaz) – only Fiona a) has no idea who Shrek is, b) takes an instant dislike to him as soon as they meet, and c) is much more interested in launching a resistance movement against Rumplestiltskin’s tyranny with a gang of ogres she’s recruited for her jihad. There follows a lot of back-and-forth as the ogre army assaults Rumplestiltskin’s castle and gets easily captured, thanks to a new character, the Pied Piper. The Pied Piper doesn’t have any dialogue but he does have a magic flute with which he can make the ogres forget about their revolution and dance uncontrollably. (The song with which he accomplishes this is Peaches and Herb’s “Shake Your Groove Thing,” which especially amused Charles.) The magic flute playing is supplied by veteran musician Jeremy Steig, who not only had his 15 minutes of fame leading a jazz-rock band called Jeremy and the Satyrs in 1968 (they started as backup band for folksinger Tim Hardin in 1966 but released their own album two years later) but was also the son of William Steig, who created the character of Shrek for his 1990 children’s book Shrek! (Note the exclamation point.) Shrek tricks Rumplestiltskin into setting all the ogres free, but the deal doesn’t include Fiona because she isn’t a pure-blooded ogre: she’s part human (and, as anyone who actually remembers Shrek the Third – which apparently didn’t include the writers of Shrek Forever After – will recall, part frog on her father’s side). Shrek and Fiona end up imprisoned in a cell in Rumplestiltskin’s dungeon where they’re both chained to the wall, and the chains are just the right length that they can’t reach each other for the kiss that will set them free and return them to their home in the swamp with their three children (who no longer exist thanks to Shrek’s stupid agreement with Rumplestiltskin). Earlier Shrek tried to kiss Fiona, but the kiss didn’t work to end the curse because Fiona hadn’t fallen back in love with him yet.

It all ends the way you expect it to, with Shrek and Fiona finally getting free of their bonds so they can kiss, Shrek is restored to his old life with Fiona and their ogre kids in the swamp, and they all presumably live happily ever after – or at least until DreamWorks Animation, its new owners (Universal) and/or Paramount get it together for a Shrek 5. Apparently the original intent was for a five-film cycle but it stopped after Shrek Forever After, though there’s a bonus item on the DVD that showcases the 2010 stage show Shrek: The Musical, which was scheduled for a major U.S. tour in a few large cities. Well, if Disney could pull a viable stage musical out of The Lion King, there’s no particular reason why DreamWorks Animation couldn’t have out of Shrek!