Only for promotional purposes, on posters and billboards and elsewhere, was the fourth installment in the Shrek franchise called The Final Chapter. The promise in that title would have been the best thing about the movie, if such a promise could be trusted from one manifestly committed to continuation rather than cessation. At all events, the actual title on screen carries a very different promise, which is quite the worst thing about the movie: Shrek neverending, Shrek everlasting, Shrek eternal. The plot premise demonstrates that no contrivance, no convolution, no contortion, will be deemed too extreme. Bored with the routine of family life, nostalgic for the good old days of fearful ogredom, Shrek enters a Faustian contract with Rumpelstiltskin that transports him into an alternative universe where none of the old characters knows him anymore: back, dishearteningly, to square one. (The plumped-up Puss ’n Boots, short of a promise to desist, is by default the best thing about the movie.) But the parallel universe proves to be no less infected by the illusion-shattering, fantasy-deflating smartypantsism — anachronistic idioms, allusions, pop songs, and so on — that ruled and ruined the earlier installments. The appurtenances of 3-D scarcely seem worth the extra three dollars for the glasses, maybe worth another thirty or forty cents. With the voices of Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy, and Antonio Banderas; directed by Mike Mitchell. (2010) — Duncan Shepherd
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