Nine years after Shrek became a monster hit, the franchise reached its conclusion with 2010’s Shrek Forever After. This time around, Shrek (voiced by Mike Myers) feels stuck in a rut.

Call it an ogre’s midlife crisis, as the family responsibilities connected to wife Fiona (Cameron Diaz) and their kids make him long for freer days. To make it worse, no one takes him seriously as a nasty monster any longer, so he’s more of a carnival attraction than anything else.

Desperate to recapture his old joys, Shrek signs a contract with wicked wizard Rumpelstiltskin (Walt Dohrn). Shrek can have a day to re-experience his past glories, and in exchange, the ogre will sacrifice one day from his past.

Shrek allows Rumpel to steal a day from his youth, and this leads to calamity, as Rumpel pilfers the day of Shrek’s birth. Because of this, Shrek never comes into existence, so when he finishes with his fun, he turns into a big green George Bailey.

Shrek must deal with an alternate reality in which he was never there to rescue Fiona. Her parents (John Cleese and Julie Andrews) signed over Far Far Away to Rumpel in exchange for her freedom, so the tiny tyrant rules the land. Shrek has until sunrise to set things right or be banished from existence.

If you look at my reviews for the first three Shrek flicks, you’ll find consistent comments. Shrek: “a generally watchable affair, but I never was able to get into it, no matter how badly I wanted to enjoy the movie.”

Shrek 2: “I enjoyed it but never thought it took off and became something special.”

Shrek the Third: “[The flick] offers an amusing but forgettable 90 minutes.”

Sense a pattern there? Given the franchise’s history, it seems unrealistic to expect anything more from After, though I held out hope.

As I noted when I reviewed the first film, I really wanted to dig the movie more than I did. That tone carried over to all the sequels as well, so even though my expectations lowered with each new flick, I still thought I might just finally find something really special on display.

And it never happened, though one shouldn’t take this as some condemnation of After or its predecessors. If nothing else, the franchise seems relentlessly consistent.

Maybe others can select one of the bunch that they think clearly surpasses its siblings, but I can’t. They’re all one big film to me. They come with virtually identical pluses and minuses, so I’ll be darned if I can differentiate among them.

Though I will say that the animation clearly came a long way between 2001 and 2010. When I reviewed Third, I noted that I suspected it’d demonstrated growth over the intervening six years, but I wasn’t sure, as the movies maintained a consistent visual style that made it more difficult to see a major difference among them.

Intellectually, I was pretty sure 2 looked better than the first and Third was more polished than 2, but I couldn’t as obviously conjure the growth as I could for the Toy Story movies, for instance.

After still maintains consistent character design, but even without direct comparison, I can tell that the animation is much more sophisticated than in the past. I don’t think the creators have approached the lovely levels of Pixar, but they’ve been able to develop much more appealing computer animation. If nothing else, After looks really good.

And it does entertain – to a moderate degree, at least. Just like its predecessors, After gives us an enjoyable fable dotted with occasional instances of clever and amusing moments. The movie always remains likable.

But it simply never goes past that level, and laugh-out-loud moments feel few and far between. Indeed, the only bit I found to be truly memorable came from Butter Pants’ incessant demands to “do the roar”, as director Mike Mitchell’s vocalizations become amusing. Some other bits made me chuckle, but nothing else seems quite as delightful as “do the roar”.

To the film’s credit, it seems acceptably fresh. Even after three other movies and a story that borrows an awful lot from It’s a Wonderful Life, After expresses its own identity, and it never feels tired or stale.

So why don’t I find myself enthusiastic about After? That’s the million dollar question, and it’s the same one I asked myself in 2001, 2004 and 2007.

The Shrek franchise always feels like it should be a total delight but it never is. After provides another entertaining but underwhelming effort.

Shrek Forever After appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.35:1 on this Blu-Ray Disc. From start to finish, this was a stellar presentation.

Sharpness appeared absolutely immaculate. No matter how wide the shots became, they always seemed crisp and perfectly detailed. Not the slightest hint of softness ever marred the presentation.

I witnessed no examples of jaggies or shimmering, and I also detected no signs of edge enhancement. As expected, source flaws also remained absent in this clean transfer.

After offered a warm palette that favored the movie’s storybook roots. The colors were consistently rich and vibrant, and they displayed absolutely no flaws whatsoever. The hues looked brilliant and dynamic and really enhanced the visuals.

Black levels also appeared dense and deep, and shadow detail was solid I felt totally pleased with this terrific presentation.

While not quite as strong as the picture, the Dolby TrueHD 7.1 soundtrack of Shrek Forever After also seemed outstanding. . The mix presented an excellent soundstage.

The front three channels were especially active, with solid spatial orientation and smooth panning between speakers. The rear speakers got a nice workout, especially in many of the scenes in which characters flew; they zipped around from front to rear and right to left effectively and convincingly.

Audio quality appeared very positive. Dialogue remained distinct and natural and suffered from no signs of edginess or problems related to intelligibility.

The score was warm and rich, as the music showed fine dimensionality and dynamics. The effects also came across as concise and accurate.

They presented clean highs and some terrific lows; bass response was consistently tight and powerful without any distortion. All in all, the audio of After seemed quite impressive.

This package includes the film in both 2D and 3D formats. The picture notes above reflect the 2D version – how did the 3D compare?

In terms of visual quality, the two looked virtually identical. If the 3D showed any degradation, I didn’t notice it, as I thought it continued to offer excellent picture.

Of the four Shrek movies, only Forever After ran 3D theatrically, as its three predecessors got reworked for home video only. This difference showed, as After brought us a substantially superior 3D experience.

Not that After went crazy with stereo elements, as the image usually focused on depth. However, it showed a much stronger sense of dimensionality than the fairly subdued presentations for the first three.

This meant After’s 3D felt more natural and convincing. It also came with a good array of showy moments, especially when flying components popped out of the screen. While not the most impressive 3D I’ve seen, the image looked very good and easily became the strongest 3D of the Shrek series.

No extras appear on the Blu-ray, but we get some on the included DVD copy, where we open with an audio commentary with director Mike Mitchell, head of story/actor Walt Dohrn and producers Gina Shay and Teresa Cheng. All four sit together for their running, screen-specific look at story/character areas, cast and performances, animation, various technical topics and music.

Expect a fairly meat and potatoes commentary here. While the participants provide a reasonable level of information related to the movie, I can’t say the track ever becomes especially lively or engaging. It delivers a more than acceptable chat without notable flaws, but it simply doesn’t keep us consistently engaged.

Three Deleted Scenes run a total of five minutes, 44 seconds. We get “Fairy Tale Creatures Attack” (2:07), “Gingy Attack (Test)” (2:22), and “Emperor No Clothes (Test)” (1:15).

“Attack” offers mostly finished animation, while the other two go with storyreels. All are actually pretty good, though the first two are rather violent. Still, I think they would’ve worked well in the final flick.

All of those running times include introductions from Mitchell. He tells us a little about the scenes and lets us know why he cut them – well, the first two at least, as we don’t find out why “Clothes” got the boot. Despite that omission, he adds some decent notes.

A few featurettes ensue. Spotlight on Shrek lasts 13 minutes, 45 seconds and offers remarks from Myers, Murphy, Mitchell, Katzenberger, Dohrn, Cheng, filmmakers Andrew Adamson, Raman Hui and Chris Miller, software development director of animation Ken Pearce, and producer Aron Warner.

“Spotlight” concentrates on the original movie, as it looks at Myers’ performance and various technical elements. The show’s puffy and it’s a little odd to hear so much about the first flick on the fourth one’s disc, but it’s better than average for a promotional featurette.

During the four-minute, three-second Secrets of Shrek Forever After, we get a look at some trivia. It makes sure we know the actors behind some of the supporting characters as well as abandoned story concepts. We’ll already know some of this info, but the piece is breezy and informative enough to merit a look.

Finally, From Swamp to Stage: The Making of Shrek the Musical runs eight minutes, 18 seconds. Hosted by Diaz, we find thoughts from directors Rob Ashford and Jason Moore, lyricist David Lindsay-Abaire, composer Jeanine Tesori, and choreographer Josh Prince.

They tell us a bit about the Broadway show’s creation, but not much. This is a long advertisement.

We can check out a little more of the show via a performance of “Who I’d Be”. It doesn’t make me want to see the show. In fact, it actively makes me not want to see the show.

The DVD opens with ads for Megamind and Kung Fu Panda 2. Under Previews, we also find promos for Shrek Forever After: The Game, Kung Fu Panda World, The Penguins of Madagascar, The Last Airbender and Shrek: The Musical. The 3D disc includes a 3D ad for Puss in Boots.

If you expect anything remarkable from Shrek Forever After, you’ve not paid much attention to its predecessors. Like the first three movies in the franchise, After delivers moderate entertainment but nothing more delightful or memorable than that. The Blu-ray provides stunning visuals, very good audio and a reasonably nice set of supplements. Though the movie remains only decent fun, at least the 3D presentation adds a lot to the experience.

To rate this film visit the original review review of SHREK FOREVER AFTER