A Pitiful Finish to a Great Trilogy

Rating: Null/10 (7 August 2011)

Rumpelstiltskin tricks a mid-life crisis burdened Shrek into allowing himself to be erased from existence and cast in a dark alternate timeline where Rumpel rules supreme.
This is the film that killed the series, rather than having it end on a high note with part three. Shrek is now a bored, middle-aged father and husband... everyone loves him... it could end here, but instead they use a "alternative reality" story. Why? Just a bad idea.
What is more bothersome is how this one seems to ignore the past films. Since Rumpelstiltskin and the Pied Piper both appeared in previous films, their characters should look the same, but they do not. At all. And Rumpel is voiced differently. When you lose continuity, you lose me as an audience member. (This is also the only one of the four without Prince Charming, but I think that is forgivable.)
In short, not as funny, inventive, or sincere as the other three... and there is a gaping plot hole that I just feel they did nothing to rectify. (Namely, is a true love not a true love all the time?) Kids might not notice how poor this film is if they are so young they just like seeing ogres move around... but the film is so humorless that anyone over ten will be turned off by this one.