The Shrek series started like a breath of fresh air. A non-Disney cartoon came along slinging a sarcastic take on the traditional fairytale and gave us a film that parents enjoyed just as much as their kids while simultaneously bringing two of its stars (Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy) and their careers back from the edge of obscurity (even if they did return there shortly after). It was just the kick in the pants the animated children’s film genre needed (at least in terms of humor) and it seemed like Dreamworks’s ogre franchise had a bright future. Unfortunately the series couldn’t keep up the momentum and the tricks that made the first flick feel fresh, felt tired by the third installment. To make matters worse, it was at this point that Dreamworks pushed Shrek into marketing overdrive and they introduced ogre babies – only to hit the undo button with the fourth Shrek film. It’s admirable that Dreamworks saw where it had made a mistake and remedied it, but it also forced their hand and ended the franchise.
Shrek: The Whole Story has all of the Shrek films on their own Blu-ray discs packed with a rather healthy dose of extra features. Before we get into the breakdown of each disc’s extras, let’s do a quick recap of each of the movies, their highs and lows, and how the franchise as a whole pans out.
Shrek became an instant animation favorite for many audiences as the titular hero (Myers) and his mostly unwanted friend Donkey (Murphy) set off on a journey to rescue Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz) from a castle hovering over a volcano so that the vertically-impaired Prince Farquaad (John Lithgow) will become King and restore Shrek’s swamp to its originally lonesome state. It remains the sharpest of the films in the series, but there’s a noticeable inferiority in animation compared to its successors that just can’t be helped, as animation improves dramatically with each year. It’s still a nice looking film though.
Shrek 2 was a slight step down from the original, but the concept still had enough steam to provide a steady stream of laughs. What’s more, is that Shrek 2 introduced Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas), who would follow through the remaining sequels, as well as expanding the spectacular voice cast to include John Cleese, Rupert Everett, Julie Andrews and Jennifer Saunders. The film lags a bit in the middle, but it has an enjoyable finale that does a lot to make up for some of its shortcomings in wit and storytelling. As expected, Shrek 2 sees a noticeable improvement in animation over its predecessor, and the quality is only improved with Blu-ray’s hi-def treatment.
Then the series hit a serious speed bump. Shrek the Third saw Shrek working as hard as possible to avoid taking over as king of Far Far Away after the death of Fiona’s father, the king (Cleese). To hand off responsibility, Shrek must leave the kingdom and track down the only other heir, Arthur (Justin Timberlake), and bring him back to rule as king. During Shrek’s absence, Prince Charming (Everett) vows vengeance against the ogre who stole his happily ever after in Shrek 2 and recruits all the typical fairytale villains to storm the kingdom and write a new ending. Laden with themes of accepting responsibility and accountability, the film takes all its time attempting to grow Shrek as a character and as a side effect loses most of the comedy the franchise is known for. The upside is that the third film also sees a noticeable bump in animation quality.
When Shrek the Third ended with the birth of ogre babies (which were only added so they could sell ogre baby plush dolls, let’s be honest), any normal sequel would have come replete with countless poop, pee, burp, and fart jokes. Instead, Dreamworks did something quite smart and decided to go the time paradox route with Shrek accidentally wishing himself into an alternate reality where he was never born and consequently never rescued Fiona, leaving Rumplestiltskin to take control of the kingdom, resulting in an underground ogre army rising to fight the evil despot. Shrek Forever After easily supplants the second sequel in terms of the third-best Shrek film, and it goes a long way toward making up for the damage the third film did to the franchise. Unfortunately, it can’t shoo away the ogre baby albatross, so the franchise really couldn’t go on after this. The Blu-ray presentation is quite beautiful on this one, and even without the 3D that helped the film in theaters, this is the best looking Shrek film without question. Additionally, it brought the talented Jon Hamm and Jane Lynch into the Shrek cast.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
Spanning the four discs is a documentary, “The Animator’s Corner: Shrek’s Interactive Journey”, broken into four parts (one on each disc). It’s the best new addition to the set and is exclusive to the Blu-ray copies of the films.
Shrek Extras (Shrekstras?):
The features in HD include “Spotlight on Donkey” (which is pretty self-explanatory);“Secrets of Shrek”, a look at the creation of the film including the animation and everything on up; and “Karaoke Dance Party” which has the songs at the end of the movie available for the kids to sing along. The non-HD extras include the deleted scenes, commentary, and more music clips that appeared on previous releases of the film.
Shrek 2 Extras:
The HD features continue with another spotlight, this time on Puss in Boots, another look at the making of the film (just like with Shrek), and even more karaoke (it’s an identical subset as on the first disc, but with the music that appears in Shrek 2). The non-HD features on Shrek 2, just like on the Shrek disc, include another look at the music of the film and audio commentaries, but no deleted scenes this time.
Shrek the Third Extras:
The hi-def feature parallel repeats with another profile (on Fiona), another making of featurette, deleted scenes, and a “How to be Green” piece about being an Ogre (not a frog, in this case). The non-HD extras on this disc include another look at the music of the film and a more static extra in the form of a Yearbook for the academy that Arthur attended.
Shrek Forever After Extras:
As expected, this latest entry not only has the best animation but the best collection of extras since this was forefront in the minds of Dreamworks when they put together the Shrek: The Whole Story set; its release precipitated by that of Shrek Forever After. Thus, we not only have the fourth and final installment of the “Animator’s Corner” documentary, but also two more Blu-ray exclusives in the form of interviews with the cast and a look at the fun technology that made this sequel possible. After that, the typical extras kick in with HD fare including the character Spotlight on Shrek, deleted scenes, and another making of featurettes, with non-HD featurettes (audio commentary and the music retrospective) rounding it out.
Finally, the Shrek Forever After disc also has the Christmas specials, Donkey’s Caroling Christmas-tacular and (the suggestively titled) Shrek’s Yule Log. Neither is terrific, and both are easily aimed more at the kids than towards both them and their parents, like the original films.
Overall the set is 2.5 films of solid comedy and a slew of respectable extras. The Blu-ray exclusive documentary makes up slightly for the abysmal quality of Shrek the Third, so for the most part it’s worth buying if you’re kids are still of the age where they appreciate the Shrek films, because any parent knows the films have plenty of comedy the kids won’t understand until they’re older.
"Shrek: The Whole Story" is on sale December 7, 2010 and is not rated. Adventure, Animation, Children & Family, Comedy. Directed by Andrew Adamson, Christopher Miller, Conrad Vernon, Mike Mitchell, Raman Hui, Vicky Jenson, Kelly Asbury. Written by William Steig (book), Andrew Adamson, Josh Klausner, Darren Lemke. Starring Antonio Banderas, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy, John Cleese, Julie Andrews, Mike Myers.
