If I may...If I may...
In my own opinion...
Shrek 1: Good
Shrek 2: Best
Shrek 3: Okay for laughs
Shrek 4: Meh...
I feel that Shrek 4 ended the series on a high note, considering that they actually planned on making several more. And don't forget we still have Puss in Boots's movie.
There's a lot of stuff I noticed about the fourth one... there seemed to be a LOT less references to other movies and the plotline, while taken from another movie anyway, seemed a LOT sharper and more focused than the third. When it comes to the third movie, I liked the princess liberation front, but the whole thing had several things wrong with it. Especially the fact that the movie was nothing more than a revenge plot.
Revenge plot (n). In a series of movies, the villain from one or more films spends an entire sequel trying to get revenge for the events of a previous film.
That's why Batman killed off all his villains in his other movies. At least this way, you get NEW villains wanting to destroy the hero.
The fourth one... I dunno... seemed a LOT more grown up than the older ones. Shrek, as a rule, relies on 2 things... gross out humor and "why me?" stories (even the Christmas special). The grossy stuff seemed to be WAAAY toned down to the point there wasn't an audible fart in the entire thing. And In fact, the entire movie happened BECAUSE of Shrek's selfish "Why me?" attitude. Effectively turning the movie on its ear. Seems like Dreamworks has grown up and started making deeper films, and Shrek got to experience it. Heck, we didn't even get a "Everyone is beautiful" type hypocritical Hollywood message. We got something deeper... you don't appreciate what you have until it's gone.
And the Puss and Donkey hating each other stuff was knocked down to ONE line. Nice!
EDIT:
Might as well get to this too...
Reimbursed? I'm sorry... but that's ridiculous on every single level there is. HELLO! This is DISNEY. They OWN your SOUL when you work for them, especially during the "Uncle Walt" era. It's not like they used any of his songs or records... or even archival recordings. I'm sorry, but NO ONE owns a voice. Otherwise, Rich Little would have been sued to the stone age, and Maurice LaMarce wouldn't have been the go to guy for celebrity VO impersonations. The only one who should be paid for Jim Cummings's impersonation IS Jim Cummings, especially since he meant it with a LOT of respect. Louie was apparently one of his favorite Disney characters.From what I can get, she didn't sue solely because Jim Cummings was impersonating Louis Prima, she sued because she wasn't being reimbursed. As a result, Disney stopped using the character to avoid having to deal with her.