Shrek 4ever after

Shrek 4ever After is a punishing title, playing on the pronunciation of four, this being the fourth instalment in Dreamworks' biggest money-making franchise. At times, the movie's marketed as The Final Chapter, which it should be. There's a point at which imitation, of oneself as well as others, is not flattering to a franchise.

Shrek 4 was inspired by It's a Wonderful Life, the classic Capra movie in which a man discovers what it means to lose a life that he thought was boring and useless. This is what the big green ogre feels when a mid-life crisis explodes during the first birthday party for his three children.

This is the opportunity Rumpelstiltskin has been waiting for, and the mean little devil might have been more interesting if his design and voice hadn't constantly reminded me of the ghastly, and funnier, nerdier creep in Pixar's The Incredibles. The voice of Rumpel, Walt Dohrn, was an animator for Shrek 3, and it's hard to hear good reasons why such an unknown quality was cast for a co-starring role beside the good old faithfuls of Myers, Murphy, Diaz and Banderas.

Rumpel gives Shrek a deal of a lifetime, one day of happy retro ogreness in return for one day of Shrek's life. He takes Shrek's birthday, which means the ogre never saved Princess Fiona, or met other characters from the first three instalments of his animated life. Somewhat incredibly, he knows he did and many of them do reappear, together with a parade of cutely apt old songs from Abba and other folk that middle-aged Shrek audiences will recognise and therefore be happy to hum while their kids wonder why the parents are chuckling nostalgically.

Fans of Terry Gilliam will be tickled too, seeing Dreamworks imitate his distinctive graphic style during Rumpel's theatrical address to his Far Far Away nation. There are other doffs of the cap to masters of the animation and CGI arts, and an inevitable surfeit of 3D settings. Those depend much on Rumpel's wicked coven of broomstuck witches, who provide aerial conflict a la Harry Potter and deadpan facials in the zombie style of Robert Zemeckis' motion-capture.

There are some good jokes, some well imagined fight sequences, and enough entertainment to justify the movie's production. Shrek is of course saved in time by True Love's Kiss, but he's a thing of the past, and I'm yet to be convinced that Puss in Boots could ever succeed in filling his big shoes.