Shrek coming full circle with himself, to be happy, and live happily ever after... once and for all...

Rating: 7/10 (8 August 2016)

Concluding my review of "Shrek the Third", I wondered what was awaiting the green ogre for its fourth adventure. After meeting his true love, her parents, getting ready for and having children, a fourth part could only let me expect something on the level of a midlife crisis. Granted the animators have enough imagination to create something satisfying, if not overwhelming, I still didn't think I would get so close.
In "Forever After", Shrek is in the same state we left him at the end of the third opus, enjoying his role as a father, teaching his triplets how to properly burp, waving at the tourists who visit the swamp and inviting Donkey, his hybrid kids, and Puss to tell their adventures' stories. But while his life seems to be governed by the same routine, his enthusiasm slowly fades out, he starts to question the meaning of his life, remembering the time when he was a 'wanted' ogre, not a local joke, and when he was alone and free, basically, being the Shrek we meet one decade before. In a way, he echoes the sentiment of some angry fans who miss the good old Shrek.
That self-questioning Shrek reflects the way his long journey has transformed him on the surface, but not much in reality, and that's the closer you can get to a midlife crisis in animation's language. And as predictable as this premise sounds, it was perhaps the best one to conclude the monster's existential journey. In the first, he had to to discover his value as a person, as someone capable to love and be loved, and Fiona was the key to this discovery. In the second, he had to learn to love himself. In the third one, , he had to accept to be a father, to engage in a serious relationship. But this issue had less to do with his status as an ogre and this is why I failed to connect it with the previous opuses and I don't think the characters of Charming or Arthur were worthy additions.
But in the fourth, we touch the essence of Shrek's personality: being an ogre, scaring people and children, living alone in a remote place, enjoying mud bath and not roaring because a chubby creepy kid asks you to do so (I admit that "do the roar" line stuck in my mind and became an instant favorite from the whole franchise). The two middle films questioned the 'happily ever after' assumption but with too mature issues (responsibility, family etc.) Now, an ogre who'd love to be an ogre again, that's the kind of stuff even a kid can get and enjoy, I think it was the only one that could have a fourth film work especially when it tells you that it is the final chapter, so we enjoy it even more because we know this is the last time we see this gallery of characters who visited us every three years, as it became a sort of tradition.
Of course, now that Shrek has kids and all must end well that ends well, we know the journey must end with Shrek realizing how lucky he is, and to get the point, he must lose first what he took for granted and this is where the villain Rumplestitk let's just call him Rumple, makes his entrance. Rumple makes a Faustian deal with Shrek: he gets one day where he is unknown and can scare people while Rumple can take any day of Shrek's life. The problem is that ever since "Back to the Future", we know that Shrek is signing his own death warrant through this contract. And while Shrek isn't the brightest bulb, it's a bit frustrating not to see the scam.
So what must happen happens, he enjoys a day of anonymity before realizing that life has changed for worse Biff Tannen, I mean Rumple became the king of Far Far Away. Alternate reality, that was the trick, how to make new stuff with old one. Shrek must conquer back Fiona's heart to cancel the curse (no curse without an antidote). But that's not as easy as it looks, Fiona became the leader of a group of revolutionary ogres, Donkey works for the witches who are to Rumple what the hyenas were to Scar, and the purpose of the whole second act (the less exciting one) is to allow Fiona to fall again in love with Shrek, so that Shrek can celebrate Christmas with his friends, and "gives his petals back to Zuzu".
The second act left me a bit cold, I liked the way the usual characters behaved differently by still being true to their nature (fat Puss in Boots was fun to some extent), but it's only the third act that brings all the emotionality, the ending that the third one needed to have. I won't spoil the final lines, but they were so beautiful I wished no one would speak after that, and no one did. It was also a great nod to the first film to have "I'm a Believer' concluding the last one, as to remind us of this 2001 year where Shrek became a cultural phenomenon, an achievement from a non-Disney character.
And it's a deserved reputation because there's a Shrek in all of us, we all have personal issues, we all wish to be different, taller, skinnier, and we all question our past. I myself spend my life wishing I hadn't made this or that mistake, but then I realize that all my mistakes, one leading to another, made me meet my wife and have a beautiful daughter. So it was all worth it. I don't know if I'll live happily ever after that, but it just allows me to look forward to the future with sheer optimism.
And now that Shrek has learned the lesson, we can wish him to live happily ever after, once and for all.