Universal dropped the first Shrek 5 trailer seventeen years after everyone assumed the franchise was finished. The strangest part is how right it feels. Not forced, not desperate, not a cash grab riding on fumes. It actually feels like a movie that has something to say.
Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, and Cameron Diaz are all back voicing their original characters. Zendaya joins the cast as Felicia, the grown daughter of Shrek and Fiona. That casting choice alone tells you everything about who this movie is for and how smart Universal is being about it. Zendaya is the defining young star of this generation, and putting her in the Shrek universe bridges the gap between the parents who grew up on these films and the kids who will experience them for the first time.
The trailer plays the generational angle perfectly. It understands that the audience who watched the original Shrek in 2001 as children now has children of their own. The film knows that and leans into it without being precious about it. There is something genuinely clever about aging Shrek and Fiona's family in real time alongside the audience. Pixar did this with the Toy Story franchise, letting Andy grow up as the viewers grew up, and it became the emotional backbone of the entire series. Shrek 5 appears to be attempting something similar, and based on this trailer, it might actually pull it off.
Eddie Murphy as Donkey remains the secret weapon of this franchise. Every line in the trailer lands exactly the way it should, and Murphy sounds like he is having fun in the booth again. There was a stretch in the mid 2010s where Murphy had stepped back from almost everything, and his return to form over the last few years has been one of the more satisfying career arcs in Hollywood. Donkey was always his loosest, most playful performance, and the trailer suggests he has not lost a step.
If you want to prep for this one, rewatch Shrek 2. It is still the best film in the franchise by a comfortable margin, and it appears to be the emotional template for what this sequel is trying to do. Shrek 2 worked because it took the fairy tale parody concept and grounded it in real family dynamics. The "meeting the parents" storyline gave the comedy actual stakes. Shrek 5 seems to be doing the same thing with a "letting your kid go" storyline, which, for the audience that grew up with these characters, is going to hit differently now.
I did not expect to care about a fifth Shrek movie. The trailer changed my mind.
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