Art & Entertainment

Shrek Forever After

The characters, their interactions and the situations they are thrown in are intermittently fun and not uniformly engaging

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Shrek Forever After
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Directed by: Mike Mitchell
Animation with voices of Mike Meyers, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy, Antonio Banderas
Rating:

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The big idea of the fourth and final film in the Shrek series is a rather mature one: call it existential angst or mid-life crisis. It’s the kind of situation each one of us would have gone through at least once in a lifetime or is likely to—when everything seems to be quite alright yet happiness remains elusive. It’s about those times when the banalities of life pull you down, turn you restless and you begin searching hard for that one intangible thing that can make life sing all over again.

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Shrek, the loveable ogre, is in the same bind. He has found love, married Fiona and has three cute kids. But sadly, this is not what he had expected “happily ever after” to be. The daily routine of changing nappies, of the kids’ burps, poo and pee is getting tiresome and meaningless. Such is the disarray that Shrek can’t have his mudbath in peace and has become, in his own words, a “green joke”. So he decides to go back in time to rid himself of the worries and responsibilities and live to the fullest. He trades one day of his life with the devious and scheming Rumpelstiltskin, who changes his wig with his mood. That’s when all hell breaks loose and Shrek has to fight against time to reclaim himself, his lost friends, his wife and family all over again. He has to figure out the crucial exit clause in his tricky contract with Rumpelstiltskin. Will he get true love’s kiss to get his life back? The film becomes his journey into realising he had everything in life but was the only person who couldn’t see it.

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It’s a wafer thin plot and gets quite plodding at times. The characters, their interactions and the situations they are thrown in are intermittently fun and not uniformly engaging. Much of the charm of Shrek lies in referencing the beloved fairy tales. The fat Puss-in-Boots and Pied Piper’s melodies are enchanting, especially the scene where he makes the ogres dance to his tunes. Another aspect which works wonders is the rather in-your-face and cheesy use of all time favourite pop numbers—Those Eyes, Top of the World, Hello—in the soundtrack.

High Fives

Bollywood

  1. Kites
  2. Housefull
  3. Badmaash Company
  4. Iron Man (dubbed)
  5. Kushti

Hollywood

  1. Shrek Forever After
  2. Iron Man 2
  3. Robin Hood
  4. Letters to Juliet
  5. Just Wright

Pop

  1. Break Your Heart (Taio Cruz, Ludacris)
  2. Nothin’ on You (B.o.B, Bruno Mars)
  3. Rude Boy (Rihanna)
  4. Your Love is my Drug (Ke$ha)
  5. Hey, Soul Sister (Train)

Courtesy: Film Information

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