totally funny

Rating: 10/10 (15 January 2013)

When you get to the fourth film in a franchise -- especially an animated franchise -- it's amazing enough that the series hasn't wound up in direct-to-DVD territory by now. But for such a film, like Shrek Forever After for example, to actually be sorta/kinda decent... well, what more can a parent who has to sit through the thing on a Saturday afternoon hope for? Make no mistake: That's what Shrek 4 is primarily designed to be, one last cash-in on the popular character by DreamWorks that is less art than it is commerce, a milking of a concept that serves as a cold reminder that the studio's critically praised How to Train Your Dragon is the exception, not the rule, for the house that Jeffrey Katzenberg built.
This latest adventure is a spin on an age-old concept, one we've seen in everything from Star Trek to Buffy to It's a Wonderful Life. When the titular green ogre (voiced once again by Mike Myers, in what may be his last viable gig) becomes frustrated by his new domesticated life of changing diapers and being henpecked by his wife, he stumbles into a deal with Rumpelstiltskin (Walt Dohrn), the trickster of legend who, well, tricks Shrek into wishing himself into non-existence.