(Review originally written at 25 December 2007)
It was sort of surprising to see that this movie fairly much had the same visual quality as all of the other 'normal' Shrek movies. Quite surprising for a 30 minutes made for TV Christmas special. In that regard the fans of the Shrek movies will most likely also not be disappointed with this movie.
The movie of course also features lots of the typical Shrek-humor and comical moments. Also of course great that all of the actors from the Shrek movies lend their voices to this special. Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Antonio Banderas, they are all here.
But it are mostly the secondary characters that make this movie fun to watch. Characters such as the Gingerbread Man and Pinocchio provide the movie with its most fun moments.
Just too bad about the simple and cheesy story. The Shrek movies were all obviously aimed toward the sort of 'older kids' and more mature audience while this story is obviously aimed toward much younger children. It's just too simplistic and candy sweet all. The story mostly doesn't work out due to the fact that you'll find yourself mostly on Shrek's side rather than Fiona's, which was not what the makers intended. I can only say that the movie gets amusing when some of the character sort of give their own interpretation of their Christmas story and experiences but other than that the story doesn't really deserve much credit. It's just too obvious all. The movie tries to shove down the Christmas message trough our throats. It feels forced and not like the sweet little fun charming movie that it really could had been.
Now instead the movie has basically little to offer or at least no more than any other Christmas TV/movie special, which doesn't take anything away from the quality or the fact that this still remains a perfectly watchable short movie.
6/10
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