Shrek Forever After

On viewing the 15 foot cinema posters featuring the tag-line 'What the Shrek just happened?', I couldn't help but to sigh and think "Oh Dreamworks, won't you just give it a rest?". Not because of the tag-line itself, that is obviously comic genius, but because at the time the makers of Shrek seemed to be on a suicide mission. The Shrek orange hath been squeezed. Juice a new one. And by that I mean a new idea for a film.

This, of course, being before I'd actually seen the latest movie. Yes, I admit it, I pre-judged. But let's be honest, Shrek's track record hasn't been tremendous. The first, a classic, the second, eagerly awaited but deemed unnecessary and the third, just down-right forgettable. That, along with Christmas specials and 9 years of full-on merchandising, was it any surprise that there was a sour undertone before the fourth spin-off even reached cinemas?

However, you have to hand it to the makers, they didn't want the last thoughts of Shrek to be eternally connected to the bomb-shell that is the third film. And so, they decided to start a-fresh and incorporate the ever-popular 'It's A Wonderful Life' narrative into the land of Far Far Away. Essentially, Shrek makes a deal with Rumplestiltskin (a new character, voiced by Walt Dohrn) to be rid of his hum-drum married life and spend a day being a true ogre. Obviously, things do not run swimmingly and Shrek finds himself and his loved ones in mortal danger. A spanner is thrown into the works though, as Shrek not only has to save the day, but also has to try and re-kindle all of his past friendships (Fiona and Donkey etc.) as, in a kind of 'parallel universe' kind of a way, nobody knows who the beloved ogre is.

The new story is refreshing, not only in the sense that you get to meet the characters all over again, but also because Dreamworks seem to have finally attempted to go back to more of the favoured elements of the original film. One of these being the music, using familiar and sometimes humorous tunes really made the difference when it came to entertainment. Also, the use of jokes that are both for adults and children were incorporated which seem to have been all but forgotten in the past two movies.

Overall, despite the fact that there have been a few misses in the series, you can't deny that most of the time Shrek has been a fun and entertaining watch for all ages and successfully goes out with a bang.

Toy Story 3

There is no doubt about it, the people at Pixar are nothing short of experts in the field of heart-rendering family flicks. Let me just run a few titles past you: We've got Monster's Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Wall.E, Up and of course, Toy Story. The first Disney/Pixar film to be made in 1995, Toy Story was an animated success which became immensely popular and a family favorite.

It is now 15 years on and the third installment (also the last) to the story is now out in cinemas. Perhaps my biggest mistake on viewing the film was to watch every trailer, read every review and listen to every person's opinion on it. Audiences treated the trequel (is that even a word?) as if it were a classic. But not just that, a new kind of classic. Beyond all classics. "Better than the first two by miles", they said. So, as you can imagine, I was looking forward to seeing it. Which raises the question,'Is too much good hype a bad thing?'. Don't get me wrong, I didn't dislike the movie. I want to clear that up right away before I get severed dolls heads in the post. What I'm saying is that it doesn't half spoil your enjoyment when you sit through an entire movie, expecting something marvelous and breath-taking to happen. It clouds your view somewhat.

Before you start over-heating with anger, judging me to be a heartless critic who has no real understanding of the series, let me explain what I liked about it. A fair few parts of the film were very funny (although granted not as many as I expected thanks to the hype again) but still, characters such as Mr Potato Head and a new addition, Ken, both had scenes which made me laugh. It was also nice to see Pixar referencing back to the previous films, allowing the audience to feel like part of an exclusive club. I enjoyed the heart-felt moments (who'd have thunk?) as well as the way that it rounded up the entire trilogy nicely at the end.

And now onto why I wasn't so impressed. The story was enjoyable and entertaining. But the claims that it was better than Toy Story 1 and 2 are just nonsense. At a push, better than the second one maybe but has everyone forgotten just how brilliant and ground-breaking the first movie was? Something else that people in other reviews raved about was the supposedly 'delightful' new characters. Many of which barely had a few lines between them. Old favourite Buzz Lightyear also seemed to lack screen time which could have been the result of having too many new additions to the story. Toy Story 2 successfully introduced unfamiliar faces slowly, giving them time to be accepted by the viewer. However, Toy Story 3 seemed to want to pack too much into too little a time-frame.

Once again, I wish I hadn't subjected myself to all the positive attention it got before-hand. I probably would have enjoyed the film a lot more if I hadn't. I feel I can't rate Toy Story 3 just yet, until I have seen the movie again, after public attention has died down and I can gauge what it means to me and no one else.