Happily N'Ever After

Variety Peter Debruge

Colorful, crowd-pleasing toon.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Happily was begun as an old-fashioned 2-D "flat" cartoon and then switched by producer John Williams (of "Shrek") and director Paul J. Bolger to 3-D during production. The style finally is an uncomfortable amalgam of both.

Los Angeles Times Alex Chun

Putting a spin on classic fairy tales is nothing new, and unfortunately that's just what the "Shrek"-lite animated feature Happily N'Ever After brings to the big screen.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

In all, it's a peculiar mishmash, simultaneously bland and suggestive.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

While the cast members, Dick and Prinze in particular, have fun with Robert Moreland's sassy script, the exaggerated, unappealing animation seems to belong to another movie altogether.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

After the first hour or so of strained puns and wisecracks, you start feeling that the sooner the ending comes, the happier it will be.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

This movie is the worst kind of offender: it thinks its funny and clever, but it is neither. The filmmakers have mistaken banality for wit and silliness for humor, and that doesn't begin to address how visually clunky this motion picture is.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

Even Eddie Murphy's endless hyper "Shrek" vamping is more entertaining.

Empire Staff (Not credited)

Shrek this ain't. A lacklustre effort hampered by limp dialogue and lazy plotting.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Who would have thought an animated comedy satirizing the predictable nature of fairy tales could be so grim?

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

N'ever was an apostrophe so misplaced, n'ever was the prospect of good cheer so perversely defeated.

The New York Times Matt Zoller Seitz

This is another tired kidsploitation product.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

The rationale behind this unattractive animated comedy, a U.S.-German coproduction, seems to be that since it can't create a fairy-tale world of its own, it might as well riffle through many of the more familiar ones, with particular emphasis on Cinderella's, pretending to deconstruct them with postmodernist glosses, adolescent wisecracks, and a few high-tech anachronisms.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Winds up answering the question of what "Shrek" hath wrought, and between its plastic-looking visuals and cynical attitude, the news isn't good. Lacking the genuine wit and humanism of that film and any number of forebears, this one deserves its dumpin'.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

As stiff and slogging as animated films come.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Happily N'Ever After carjacks "Cinderella" and puts her wicked stepmother behind the wheel.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

A pallidly "hip" revision of classic fairy tales that would be better told straight up if anyone had the nerve. It will divert small children, but so will a brightly colored object if you twirl it.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

An ugly, unfunny, headache-inducing fairy-tale spoof.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

The best that can be said of this charmless animated picture is that whether or not it ends happily -- an outcome you're unlikely to give a hoot about -- it does, happily, end.

Village Voice Ella Taylor

Director Paul J. Bolger and screenwriter Rob Moreland have drained the affectionate wit out of the Shrek franchise's satire, giving us instead a barely sketched out story line and quantities of unimaginative CGI.

Entertainment Weekly Gregory Kirschling

Stuffed with stock characters -- the vain prince, the critter sidekicks -- who adamantly stay stock.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

If you really want the kids to see a colorfully cryptic meta fairy tale, be subversive and go rent 'em some Alejandro Jodorowsky. No child deserves Happily N'Ever After.