BEFORE: The voice of Antonio Banderas carries over from last night's "Puss in Boots" as I close out yet another franchise. This film needs to be really great, however, to make up for the awful "Shrek the Third" (or, as they supposedly called it at the Dreamworks offices, "Drek the Turd").
But it's also a new month, and February has traditionally been devoted to films about love and romance. Fortunately (and not-so-coincidentally), fairy tales usually fit right in with that, so I'll spend a few days in storybook land, then move on to other romantic endeavors.
It's also the start of TCM's "31 Days of Oscar" promotion, so I've got to keep an eye on what they're running, and choose films carefully - if I try to add too many to the list, I'll fill up my DVR, and my list will start making negative progress again. This year they've arranged their Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated films by location, which I find both clever and interesting. Day 1's films are set in Florida, like "The Yearling" (pass), "Key Largo" (pass) and "Some Like It Hot" (seen it) before moving to Pennsylvania for "Rocky" (seen it) and "The Philadelphia Story" (ditto). Looks like I'm all clear on Day 1's program. I did pick up a few other films this week, so the list remains at 265.
THE PLOT: Rumpelstiltskin tricks a mid-life crisis Shrek into allowing himself to be erased from existence and cast into a dark alternate timeline where Rumpel rules supreme.
AFTER: That's right, it's a play on "It's a Wonderful Life", where the kingdom of Far, Far Away gets turned into Pottersville - er, Rumpeltown. You can probably guess the lesson that Shrek learns from it all, that it always seems the grass is greener on the other side, and people/ogres always want what they can't have, without realizing how good their life actually is.
Just like "Shrek" put a spin on the classic fairy tale motifs, this film turns the Shrekian formula inside-out, forcing the audience to think back to the first film, and then putting a spin on that storyline. This time Shrek didn't save Fiona from the dragon and rescue her from her curse, so what are the implications of that? He's got to make friends (again) with Donkey, and try to win her heart (again). Like Vezzini said, "Go back to the beginning!"
There are a lot of new rules concerning the way magic works, and Rumpelstiltskin comes off like a shady lawyer, crossed with the devil and his love for temptation and signing things. I don't know if kids really found the finer points of contract law to be entertaining - but Rumpel was at least as interesting as Humpty Dumpty was last night.
So, yeah, I was well entertained by this one. I know the first "Shrek" inside and out, since we watched it so many times on our honeymoon (the cruise ship ran it constantly) - so it was nice to see a darker spin on the fairy-tale land. Throw in some clever references to "The Wizard of Oz", "The Untouchables", and even "Deliverance, and I'm a happy camper.
Also starring the voices of Mike Myers (last seen in "54"), Cameron Diaz (last seen in "Knight and Day"), Eddie Murphy (last seen in "I Spy"), with cameos from Julie Andrews, John Cleese (last heard in "Planet 51"), Jon Hamm (last seen in "The Town"), Jane Lynch (last seen in "Julie & Julia"), Craig Robinson (last seen in "Fanboys"), Kathy Griffin, Kristen Schaal (last seen in "Cirque du Freak"), Meredith Vieira, Ryan Seacrest, Larry King (last heard in "Bee Movie") and Regis Philbin.
RATING: 7 out of 10 mud angels
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