For the record I loved the first two Shrek films, and I have yet to watch the third in the series. And while it seems to me that the fourth installment cannot possibly measure up to the first two, the quality of the film was not, for me, the main issue. For the most part the film was entertaining and diverting (if a little bit too frantic at the film's beginning).
The real issue for me was the film's presentation. Now, I know that the price one pays for waiting until a film reaches the cheap theaters is that one watches a film print with many scratches and the occasional splice. And I'm also at peace with the knowledge that when a film reaches one of these theaters, it will soon be, or may already have been, released on DVD and Blu-Ray. So this was not the problem with this film's presentation.
What was so disconcerting is the fact that the projector was playing the film at a frame rate significantly faster that twenty-four frames per second. Now whether this was from incompetent maintenance from the theater's management, or was from a greedy desire to show the film faster so they could slip in another showing, I do not know. What I do know is that part of the charm of the Shrek series is the use of celebrity voice artists that people recognize as the voices of those artists.
The character of Shrek sounded like he was voiced by someone doing a bad Mike Myers imitation. Eddie Murphy's Donkey only vaguely sound like him and Cameron Diaz's Fiona sounded like she was voiced by anyone but Cameron Diaz. Similarly, both John Cleese and Julie Andrews were completely unrecognizable. Only Antonio Banderas managed to survive this atrocious projection speed.
So the question remains, is Shrek Forever After worth the price of admission? I guess I'll have to wait until the DVD release to find out.
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