Tomorrow (December 7th) Dreamworks releases one of its biggest animated hits in some time with Shrek The Whole Story on Blu-ray and DVD. Folks, I can only tell you that having this entire collection means truly ‘owning’ the world of Shrek.
What you get in the collection is all four movies on Blu-ray. Each movie carries its own set of features and pretty much all the features on each disc is worth the money and time. If you have never seen the movies before then you’re going to be entertained, though some are better than others.
The first film essentially has our hero trying to live the dream of an ogre; mainly alone. The film introduces us to his unusually talkative donkey, Donkey. You also get introduced to a very badass princess named Fiona, who ends up possibly being the love of Shrek’s life. You also get a wonderful villain with Lord Farquaad, who looks to take over all of the land (including the land of the fairy tale characters. The first film is out of this world rude and funny.
Now, I think that the second film in the bunch, Shrek 2, lost a little ground. The story was a little weak, as Shrek and Fiona go home to meet Fiona’s parents for the first time. The problem is that Fiona’s true love, Prince Charming, ends up rescuing a Fiona in the original tower from the first film only to discover that she has moved on with Shrek. Of course, the storylines come together that Fiona’s father wants Shrek out of the picture and strikes a deal with the Fairy Godmother to get Fiona back to Charming. It’s a bit of a slow story, especially when it spirals towards the end, but it’s still funny. Certainly it’s not as good as the first film, or the ones after it, but it’s still entertaining.
The third film caught people off guard, especially after the second. Shrek The Third is based around the death of Fiona’s father (the king) and Shrek’s sworn search for King Arthur. Easy, right? Well, Arthur is about 13 years old in this and his desire to rule the kingdom of Far Far Away isn’t exactly in his plans. Shrek has to convince Arthur otherwise and also deal with the fact that he’s going to be a father. I really believe this is the funniest of the four, if not only for the parts with Arthur and the babies.
The final film in the quadrilogy (coined by Fox’s Alien quadrilogy) is called Shrek Forever After. I really do like this better than the second Shrek, if not only for the reinvention of the world, which the animation team of Dreamworks performed. The story revolves around Shrek’s need to have his own day to basically do whatever he wants. He strikes a deal with Rumpelstiltskin to have his own day as a real ogre in exchange for one day of his life. Regretfully, he gets the raw end of the deal and ends up having his life completely unravel, including his marriage to Fiona. It’s interesting how he gets it all back and it’s very similar to the first film. It’s funny, charming and a little bit more emotional than any previous Shrek. It’s a perfect end to the entire story.
Those are the movies you get and they aren’t bad at all. If you’re a huge fan of the film series then it’s a no brainer, especially when it comes to the Blu-ray versions of the film.
Speaking of Blu-ray…
It comes in a beautiful, hardbound box with an entire picture of the animated cast on the front and a wonderful picture of the ‘behind-the-scenes’ on the back. The visual and audio quality of this set is pretty darn sharp. Coming to you in gorgeous 1080p, you will be able to see the progression of the animation process as the movies get better and better. You can certainly tell the jump between the first Shrek movie and the third. The details in the animation and the smooth movement animation is pretty obvious. There is less stiffness to the moving and a bit more texture refinement. Is that good or bad? Well, it does show a bit of age in the first film. I always thought that having animated movies in HD is a risk and this might be an example of how it can almost backfire. For adults you’ll probably see the difference pretty easily. For kids they probably won’t care much. Regardless, there is a difference, but it all looks really sharp.
Now, with that said, one of the sharpest parts of the Shrek series is the soundtrack. Each movie is mastered in Dolby Digital TrueHD 7.1. You read that right, ‘7.1’. This is only the second Blu-ray that I’ve seen this year that was mastered in that audio. It’s impressive, especially since the soundtrack is generally really upbeat and entertaining. I think the sound effects and dialogue come through particularly well, which is a huge plus. Anyway, if I had to rate the audio and video individually I would have to say that the audio has the upper hand and is one of the best reasons to get this set.
The features are also a great plus when you’re deciding about this collection. You get each film packed with features that range from commentary, a spotlight series on main characters (Donkey, Fiona, etc.) and more than enough featurettes and deleted scenes. You also get the Donkey Caroling Christmas-tacular (in HD), which the kids will adore. There are plenty of reasons why the special features on each disc makes it worth the purchase, so you won’t be disappointed at all in this department.
So where is the major disappointment in the collection? Good luck in finding it. While our MSRP up top says $76.99, you can find this set on Amazon for around $40. That’s right, only $40 for a Blu-ray set of the entire Shrek series. If you think about that really hard you will realize that the fourth movie by itself costs around $24.99, which is a little more than half that (for the math deficient). If you don’t have any of these movies or you’re getting an HD television and want to upgrade some movies in your collection to Blu-ray then this is completely a no brainer. Anyway, it’s all entertaining, all spectacular in HD and definitely worth the chunk of change that’s being asked for in exchange.
