Shrek 5: The Divorce

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“I for one did NOT expect Dreamworks to go this route...”

— Schaffrillas Productions

Shrek 5: The Divorce (also known as Shrek The Fifth) is an animated musical fantasy black comedy tragedy crossover film. It stars the main cast of the Shrek series (Mike Myers as Shrek, Cameron Diaz as Fiona, Eddie Murphy as Donkey, and Antonio Banderas as Puss in Boots), and some new voice actors too, such as voice actors for the teenage triplets (Thomas Middleditch as Fergus, Clark Duke as Fargle, and Emma Roberts as Felicia), Bill Hader as Shrek's divorce lawyer, Laura Dern as Fiona's divorce lawyer, and Zach Woods as Shrek's long-lost brother Drek. The film is directed by Andrew Adamson, known for the first two Shrek films, and was released on June 29, 2021.

Plot

Shrek and Fiona are now the king and queen of Far, Far Away and Fergus, Fargle, and Felicia are teenagers. Shrek and Fiona struggle through a grueling divorce that pushes them, their friends, his visiting brother Drek, and their triplet children to their limits. Meanwhile, Donkey is sold by Shrek to the unnamed farmer and Donkey meets some new pals there, he meets the cows, the horses, the pigs, the chickens, and the sheep. They soon find a UFO and attempt to go to space to become the first animals to head to the moon. Puss in Boots is now Fiona's pet, and Shrek buys a new dog named "Deathbreath", which he named because of his stinky breath. Puss doesn't like him at first because of how smelly he is, but in the end, he soon grows to love him.

Why It's All Ogre Now

1. It has none of the charms of the previous Shrek movies, with it trying to be more adult-friendly hence why the movie is rated R and goes for an even darker tone than the previous installments, the problem with the dark tones shares a similar problem to Shrek the Third and Shrek Forever After (to some extent), except it is much, much worse.
2. Making this sequel an R-rated movie sounds like a terrible idea, due to the fact that the Shrek movies are typically meant to be family movies, meaning that it is for both children and adults of all ages, so making a Shrek movie that is only targeted towards adults is a terrible idea from the start.
3. Continuing on with the previous pointer, the movie cannot decide what the target audience it wants to focus on, it has lots of juvenile toilet humor, butt shots, and stupid moments that appeal to children, but at the same time, it has lots of adults jokes, swear words and dark humor that only adults will get and enjoy.
4. It rehashes elements from Marriage Story, Ice Age: Collision Course, Despicable Me 3 and The Secret Life of Pets.
   • The main story attempts to rehash Marriage Story, with Shrek and Fiona filling in Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson's roles respectively but doesn't succeed in any way. They even got Laura Dern to play the lawyer again!
   • It is also a ripoff of Despicable Me 3, as Shrek's brother Drek shows up unexpectedly and adds nothing to the plot other than being a "cooler version of Shrek."
   • Despite being good, Donkey's subplot somewhat rehashes Scrat's subplot in Ice Age: Collision Course because it involves Donkey and his new friends from the farm discovering a UFO and heading into space, the only difference is that Donkey and his barnyard friends don't end up causing a collision course, and instead go to the moon to be "the first farm animals to head to the moon".
   • Puss' subplot is a rehash of The Secret Life of Pets because it has almost the same conflict as in that movie. The Secret Life of Pets involved Max's owner adopting a new pet named Duke, who Max dislikes at first, but he soon grows to love him by the end. Almost all the elements are rehashed in this movie; Shrek adopts a new dog named "Deathbreath", in which Puss dislikes him at first due to his foul stench and bad breath, but he and Deathbreath soon grow to love each other in the end.
5. The movie introduces tons of useless and/or wasted characters:
   • The duo cows in Donkey's subplot, Stinker and Thinker are extremely annoying and they always have a recurring joke where if they fart or burp, the object that is in front or behind them gets completely destroyed due to the horrible stench of the fart or burp.
   • Deathbreath, while funny and cute, is just a clone of Monchi from The Mitchells vs. the Machines and is only well-known for smelling bad and having bad breath, hence his name.
   • The Farmer and his son almost contribute nothing to the story and are only there for filler scenes.
   • Fiona's stepfather Richard is an unlikable rich jerk who is just a stereotype of a rich guy who has no empathy towards any feelings of people around him.
6. For a film using a children's franchise, the content is surprisingly dark and is somehow even darker than Shrek the Third and Shrek Forever After, such as:
   • Shrek physically and verbally abusing Fiona multiple times.
   • Felicia running off with the wrong crowd at her school and doing "fantasy drugs" with them.
   • Fargle trying to kill himself multiple times (luckily, Fergus and Puss stop him).
   • Shrek becoming addicted to drugs and hiding tons of crack in his room.
   • Fiona having affairs with multiple people, including Prince Charming (no longer voiced by Rupert Everett), Lord Farquaad, and both her and Shrek's lawyers.
7. There is an abysmal joke about Fiona being "Bi-Shrexual," uttered once Shrek walks in on her having sex with her female divorce lawyer.
8. The movie has too many product placements and unnecessary pop culture references, about as much as the third and fourth Shrek movies had.
   • There is a dream sequence where Shrek looks like he is about to pass away due to old age in bed but turns into an ogre fetus, and then it shows a shot of Shrek as an ogre fetus floating in space looking down at the Earth, as a reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
   • When Donkey meets the horses, he says "Heeeeeere's Donkey!", blatantly referencing The Shining.
   • Shrek tells his children "I am your father!" at one point, referencing Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.
   • Fiona saying "Hello, Kitty!" to Puss in Boots, as an obvious Hello Kitty reference.
   • The scene where Donkey and the farm animals are about to take their first steps on the moon, and plays "Also Sprach Zarathustra", as a 2001: A Space Odyssey reference. Despite this, the scene is epic and exciting.
   • The Farmer and his son become addicted to a game called "Pokélawn Go", which seems to be a mashup of Pokémon Go and FarmVille.
   • Shrek almost dropping his drugs and saying "I'll never let go, crack!", as a reference to Titanic.
   • In the scene where Puss in Boots is ready to race through Shrek's house, he says "Gotta go fast!", as a reference to Sonic X.
   • Fargle and Felicia steal Fiona's credit card and go shopping at Ye Olde Hot Topic, even buying tickets for a concert starring Fargle's favorite band, My Alchemical Romance (which even got the MCR and Fullmetal Alchemist fandoms to band together to make fun of the movie on Tumblr).
   • Shrek apparently got an honorary doctorate from the "University of the Phoenix," a phony medieval university, after the events of Shrek Forever After.
   • There are a group of villagers who say they get their news "from the Fox," a talking fox who falsely accuses Shrek, a clear reference to FOX News and their lies.
   • There is even a reference to "Shrek is Love, Shrek is Life," an infamous YouTube meme. People even refer to Shrek as the "Ogrelord" at one point.
   • False advertising: The trailers and posters for the movie heavily advertise the subplot involving Donkey and his friends going to space, but it is generally not focused that much on the movie itself, in fact, 11% of the screentime involves Donkey and his barnyard friends in space.
9. The fairy tale creatures (Pinocchio, Gingy, the Three Little Pigs, etc.) are rather pointless, as they barely contribute anything to the plot, and their subplots almost have nothing to do with the main story.
10. Everyone acts out-of-character and gets flanderized from their counterparts in the previous four movies:
    • Shrek is completely flanderized into being a pretentious jerk who is an abusive husband to Fiona and often abuses his children from time to time too, he is also a terrible friend to everyone around him and even goes as far as to give Donkey away to a farmer all because he accidentally broke Shrek's door.
    • Fiona is flanderized to an abusive wife who forcefully wants to ruin Shrek's life and tries way too hard to cheat on him. She even tells Shrek, "I'm sorry Shrek, but it's all ogre."
    • The teenage versions of the triplets are rather poorly-written characters as you can't really sympathize with them, and have no personality aside from being standard archetypes (Fergus is a typical pretentious nerd, Fargle is a typical emo teenager, and Felicia is a former popular girl who becomes a drug addict).
    • Donkey is now flanderized into becoming a crazy idiot who obsesses over going to space for no reason whatsoever, he also has an annoying recurring joke where he yells "PEE-YEW!" in an exaggerated voice whenever someone farts, burps, or if he smells something bad.
    • Gingy is now flanderized into a strict and bossy jerk who constantly forces the Muffin Man to build a gingerbread city.
11. A massive amount of toilet humor is in this movie, to the point where it gets disgusting and really annoying, in fact, this movie has got more toilet humor than all the Shrek movies combined! Some include:
    • The cows constantly farting and burping whenever they are on-screen.
    • The beginning scene where Shrek's children take craps in their diapers and end up getting diaper rashes.
    • Donkey taking a crap in the cow field.
    • Shrek taking a crap in toilets and forgetting to flush and to put the seat down.
    • The farmer's son touching and stroking a horse's butt and ends up running away scared after it farts.
    • Shrek peeing on Prince Charming's body while he is knocked out cold.
    • A few unnecessary butt shots of the characters, such as Fergus' butt being shown when Shrek finds out that his children have diaper rashes, the horses having close-up shots of their butts, and Shrek's butt being shown in the scene where he is an ogre fetus in space.
12. The film has too many characters and plots that it seems somewhat unfocused.
    • It has too many subplots to the main plot of Shrek and Fiona wanting to divorce, such as:
      • Donkey and his barnyard friends discovering a UFO and going into space, despite being enjoyable.
      • Puss in Boots trying to make friends with Shrek's new dog named "Deathbreath".
      • Gingy trying to make a gingerbread city with the Muffin Man.
      • Fiona's mother marrying a man named Richard.
13. There are meaningless swear words in the script, which are only added for shock value.
14. Many of the dialogue are real clunkers and often include unnecessary rhyming, toilet humor, and bad puns, some of the offending examples include:
    • Puss in Boots: Pee-yew! You have stinky breath, It stinks so much that I am close to my death!
    • Shrek: God damn it! I wish I could beat the fuck out of my children's butts!
    • Fiona: Shrek, do you know who left the toilet seat up?
      Shrek: Um, it was Donkey, because he is an ass.
15. This movie came out 11 years after its predecessor, which is way too late to make a fifth movie.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The animation is still good and is also a massive upgrade to the previous installments.
   • Drek, in particular, looks good as a skinny, sharp-featured version of Shrek.
2. Despite being somewhat unfocused from the main story, the fact that it rehashes Scrat's subplot in Ice Age: Collision Course and the fact that Donkey is out of character, the subplot involving Donkey and his friends going to space was enjoyable, and was one of the save and graces for this movie.
   • In fact, the subplot was originally a short movie called Shrek: A Donkey Odyssey, which is considered to be much better than the actual movie due to the fact it only focuses on that subplot, as well as the fact that Donkey isn't out of character in that short film, despite still using his annoying "PEE-YEW!" catchphrase.
3. Some characteristics are done right in the movie:
   • Drek is a likable character who works as the mediator between Shrek and Fiona, and a kind uncle to the triplets.
   • Shrek's dog Deathbreath is a funny and cute character, despite being a clone of Monchi from The Mitchells vs. the Machines.
4. There are a couple of funny comic relief scenes, mostly through Puss, Donkey, and other fairytale creatures.
   • The scene where Donkey and his barnyard friends are in space while the song "Blue Danube" plays was quite funny.
   • Puss had a really funny scene where he tries to do a cat obstacle course, but failed miserably and hurt himself a lot.
5. Though weaker than Rupert Everett's voice, Dermot Mulroney (the straight Rupert Everett) does a decent job taking over as Prince Charming.
6. The movie has its epic and exciting moments, such as Shrek and Lord Farquaad having an epic battle and Donkey setting foot on the moon with "Also Sprach Zarathustra" playing to build up the intensity of the latter scene.
7. Bringing back Fairy Godmother and Lord Farquaad was a nice touch.
   • Farquaad comes back to life and builds his Facebook factory.
8. "All Star 2" is made and implicated well when Shrek opens his outhouse again.
9. The new voice actors, especially Bill Hader, Clark Duke, and Zach Woods are good and well-cast.
10. It reunited Thomas Middleditch and Zach Woods after Silicon Valley.

Reception

Shrek 5: The Divorce received mixed reviews from critics but was also met with a negative reception from audiences and fans of Shrek, with most saying that it was even worse than Shrek the Third and it was a horrible way to cap off the Shrek franchise, most of the criticisms go to the surprisingly dark nature, the unnecessary and forced pop-culture references, lots of the main characters being flanderized, and the main story rehashing Marriage Story. Although, it did gain some praise with the animation, the subplot with Donkey, the characters from the previous movies being brought back, as well as the original voice actors reprising their roles. IMDb currently rates this movie a 5.1/10 rating, on Metacritic, the film has weighted a critic score of 55 out of 100 and a 2.9 audience score, and on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has a 54% critic score and a 19% audience score. The site's critical consensus states, "Shrek 5: The Divorce is an absolute joke and is an insult to the Shrek franchise, it feels like a very bad fan-fiction brought to life by someone who would make it an ironic meme post than an actual movie with a good story". Due to the failure of this movie, DreamWorks went on to openly apologize for the quality of the movie and they stated that they would no longer be making any more R-rated movies and promised to improve everything by making another Shrek 5 to replace this.

Trivia

• The original teaser trailer parodied the opening of 2001: A Space Odyssey, with it starting out with the song "Also Sprach Zarathustra" and the sun rising over what appeared to be a planet, but then it reveals that it was Shrek's head.
• The movie originally started out as just a short film about Donkey and his barnyard friends going to space under the name Shrek: A Donkey Odyssey, in a similar manner to how Ice Age: Collision Course started out as a short film named Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe. It was soon decided by the directors to make it a Shrek sequel after the test audiences gave the short film very mixed feedback.
• Despite this, the short film was released on 4th June 2021 and was attached to Spirit Untamed, with the short playing before the feature presentation.
  • Unlike Shrek 5, the audiences reacted more positively to it, with the short film earning a 7.1/10 rating on IMDb.
• This movie spawned the "I need to use the Donker" meme.

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