Shrek-The Big Green Money Machine

The Shrek franchise has made a mint based on the ability to sneak slightly more adult jokes past an unsuspecting underage audience. Some good-natured toilet humor for the kids, some innuendo for the adults and funny likable characters for everybody. Cha-ching. If the critics quibbled, it was because Shrek had become increasingly dependent on the inside pop culture reference, riffing on cultural icons by transferring them into a big, green, ogre-populated setting. Starbucks in Far, Far, Away land and so forth. Cute but easy. The Fourth installment of the Shrek series has paid attention to the critical sniping. It really avoids the easy pop culture joke. Instead it takes it's cue from a cinematic icon. It is a knock off of "It's a Wonderful Life" with a big green Ogre cast in the Jimmy Stewart role.
Shrek makes a pact with the bad guy, a wheeler-dealer named Rumpelstiltskin who trades Shrek a day from his childhood for a day in which he can roar like an ogre instead of being a hen-pecked hubby and dad. Thank goodness there's an out clause or his old life might be gone forever. Shrek gets to see a world without him in it and of course it isn't pretty.
It's fun enough and the characters carry the day in a familiar sort of way but just like the Capra classic, this is a pretty dark and angry world, maybe even a little inappropriate for the very young or over-sensitive so be careful Moms and Dads. It's dark and really not as funny as the rest of the franchise but redemption comes and it all works out. The kids will find that this last installment in the series makes it to the finish line just in time for a good time to be had by all. Good thing, because this whole Shrek thing seems to be ending just as it runs out of steam.