If only life's burdens could be wiped out by a single kiss. Well, in this Dreamworks-created world, locking lips with your true love can render bad contracts void and break spells.
In Shrek Forever After, the final chapter of the franchise, we meet a domesticated version of Shrek (Mike Myers). Increasingly strained by the mundane duties of parenthood, he longs to turn back the clock to happier times when he was a jolly green ogre.
The nefarious Rumpelstiltskin (Walt Dohrn) tricks Shrek into signing his life away in a contract to relive a day as a real ogre. Immediately, Shrek is transported into an alternate world where ogres are pitted against witches. In a race against time, he must find and kiss his one true love before sundown to void the contract and return to a life he once despised.
Despite the sluggish box office sales, Forever After is a feel-good love story filled with witty gags and running jokes from previous chapters. The brief musical interludes, however, feel unoriginal - the whole break-dancing witch thing is so 2005.
The film's highlight comes from an unlikely source: Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) steals the show, not as a master swordsman but as the pampered, overweight pet of Fiona (Cameron Diaz). The laziness, and the jump from assassin (in Shrek 2) to lap cat, create a comedic contrast that is sure to put a smile on your face.