Shriekin’ dull!

On Sunday afternoon, my kids rushed me to downtown Paris to watch a movie as a “last time together” opportunity. I was somehow hoping for a valuable alternative (even Millenium 2 would have been nicer!) for myself but, since none was available, I ended up watching Shrek 4 with them… While I liked very much Shrek (1), its great soundtrack, and its second degree type of humor, this last (?) avatar of in the series is very dull and recycles most of the jokes (and all of the characters) of the previous movies. The main line is along the very easy scenario trick of alternate realities, namely “what if Shrek never rescued Fiona?!” in the current case. But there is very little to sustain the plot, the “bad guys” being hopeless, even though some ideas, like the witches dance floor, the rat/witch/sock/ogre piper, the origami way out of the contract, or the reversal of the roles of Shrek and Fiona, are worth their salt. At some point, I thought it was going to be a great parody of the (obscure) Groundhog Day, which repeats itself over and over again for a single character, but it seems the days of second-degree and self-inflicted irony are mostly left behind by the realisators producers of Shrek. Even the soundtrack was fairly poor. As with many 3D movies (which I fundamentally dislike because I do not have 3D vision!), the technical trick of producing 3D effects seems to take over the story (see Avatar as an upscaled example). In the end, the nicest part of the movie film was sitting in the cool and in the dark, but if it is not that hot, better stay at home and watch again Shrek 1. Or whatever!