Voice cast: Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy, Antonio Banderas, Julie Andrews, Walt Dohrn
Running time: 93 minutes
Distributor: Berjaya HVN

This is the last of the Shrek movies. Unfortunately, it is out the same year as the final Toy Story movie and comes nowhere close to the impact of Toy Story 3. According to IMDB (imdb.com), Toy Story 3's box-office gross sales have been almost double that of Shrek Forever After.

Comparisons aside, it's good that Dreamworks decided to close the book on Shrek – after all, better to go out while Shrek is still popular and before it becomes just another Barbie.

This last movie is not bad per se, but it can't come close to how good the first movie was.

The story starts with a very domesticated Shrek (Myers) having a monotonous life – taking care of his home and his three children, fixing the outhouse and no longer being feared by the tourists even.

At his children's birthday party, Shrek has had enough of everyone treating him like a doormat and blows up.

He leaves in a huff and later meets Rumpelstiltskin (Dohrn) who offers him just one day to live as he pleases. Shrek decides to sign the contract with the little mischief maker, thinking he's just won himself a day of singlehood and true ogreness again.

In fact, to enjoy that day of singlehood, Shrek has given up one day of his life … and the day chosen by Rumpelstiltskin is the day he was born.

It, in fact, wipes out Shrek's existence.

Fret not, Shrek has a day to set things straight because if he doesn't break the spell on Princess Fiona then he can never go back to his life and he will really cease to exist.

But he's got his work cut out for him because nobody remembers him – not Donkey (Murphy), not Fiona (Diaz), not Puss in Boots (Banderas) and his children were never even born.

Shrek basically learns the hard way to appreciate his family and the life that he has. He also learns not to take it all for granted.

It was nice in a sense watching Shrek try to win Fiona's heart all over again and befriend Donkey again. He has to win their trust this time in order to gain their confidence and friendship.

There were some funny moments and it was fun to watch Shrek and Donkey in all sorts of situations but it did not have me in stitches as the first movie did.

I can't tell if it's because the writers ran out of jokes or if the whole atmosphere and nursery rhyme characters got stale after the first three movies.

There are some nice 70s songs in there though if you're into the retro music – Top of the World by Carpenters was the song of choice when Shrek was enjoying the single life again.

That was a funny scene, I have to admit; Shrek terrorising the villagers with a big happy smile on his face.

Is it worth watching and will your kids enjoy it?

Yes, your children will enjoy it and you probably won't mind it. But, if you missed it, you wouldn't be missing anything either. - Review by S.N.