How to Train Your Dragon was a decent-enough flick that served well to busy parents with bored children on weekend afternoons. The movie offered amazing visuals with an equally impressive storyline, despite a few generic clichés here and there. DreamWorks Animation, unlike Pixar, tends to push out a movie in the spring and another in the fall, whereas Pixar delivers one annual flick every summer. This year however DreamWorks has cooked up three. Dragon ballooned to over $400 million worldwide, and counting; the Will Ferrell/Tina Fey Megamind drops this November – and then there’s Shrek Forever After. Dragon was barely off of most 3D screens before big green ogres sent by the same studio gave it the boot.

Storytelling alone Shrek has run its course. The offbeat humor and sharp wit that gave the first two films their zing have morphed into generic-enough animation that is too busy trying to fit all of its character on screen than it is in detailing character-driven aspects that made the original work so very well. Shrek the Third was a numbing abortion, and the last shot DreamWorks had at providing whatever amount of remaining magic the alternative fairytale had left. Shrek Forever After is by no means as wretched as its predecessor. The least I can say about this one is it at least knows what type of movie it wants to be and the straight line it intends on walking in. Though certain animated gems have indeed come from DreamWorks, they themselves being a refreshing flipside to Pixar’s melancholy, touching and funny as their work ethics may be. Over the Hedge, Kung Fu Panda, and Flushed Away ridiculed less-than-perfect worlds with real-life dilemmas but never meant to destroy them without first finding the humor in the wacky surrealism. Madagascar might be trailing away, but Shrek has long checked out by now. Originality is what DreamWorks thrives on, and what prevents their movies from becoming only numbers on the side of DVD cases to tattered visions torn apart by excessive greed.

This is being boasted as the “final chapter” in the series, apparently nixes prequels such as next year’s promised Puss in Boots spin-off. We’ve watched Shrek (Mike Myers) rescue a closeted ogre (Cameron Diaz) and make her his bride, befriend an obnoxious yet sweet-spirited Donkey (Eddie Murphy), cohort with the hot-blooded feline avenger Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas), and have three beautiful children. Since Shrek 2 ended in 2004 he’s been living the life of an average suburban dad. Enough, so say he. Shrek isn’t satisfied rooted in his ways, as the flick’s execs obviously are. He freaks out at his kids’ birthday party, insults Fiona by wishing he’d never rescued her and further goes on to sign a contract by the villainous Rumpelstiltskin (voiced wonderfully by DreamWorks story head Walt Dohrn). He’s promised happiness once feared by village folk once again and thought of something other than a neutered house cat. Of course, Rumpelstiltskin didn’t reveal quite everything to Shrek. He’s erased the day of his birth from memory and now no one can remember exactly who he is. Fiona’s a Viking warrior who’s formed an underground resistance against new Far Far Away emperor and waiver source, among the force Brogan (Jon Hamm) and Gretched (Jane Lynch); Donkey is a pack mule fueled to service Rumpel’s minion witches; and Puss in Boots has turned into the bored cats he’s wooed with promises of high-flying thrills in movies past.

I can’t condone to Shrek Forever After as anything beyond killing weekend doldrums, but I guess I can’t close the case too quickly. People around me in the theater were hooting with laughter, leaving me dumbfounded. I saw most parents were with their kids and I certainly won’t put that bonding time down. It’s not like I was expecting Forever After to bring Shrek back to its original form. Most others were checking out MacGruber, Iron Man 2, or Robin Hood. Me, I just felt lost in a time and place that didn’t feel as epic as it used to. Shrek’s name may have meant something years ago; yes. Today it stands as nothing more than a marketable property where the actual picture it’s promoting only comes in secondary to the plastic Happy Meal toys kids will most likely encourage their parents to buy for them. Shrek Forever After, bombarding justified action and clever social commentary with tired one-liners and fart jokes, has become the same hackneyed corruption it had originally set out to put in its place. We haven’t outgrown Shrek. Shrek’s just outgrown us.

SKIP IT.