The first Shrek film was one of the most crowd-pleasing movies to come along in awhile, working as both safe animated entertainment for kids and clever comedy for adults. The sequel sticks to the first film's formula so closely that there's no doubt everyone who enjoyed Shrek will again find plenty to like. Unfortunately, it seems as though everyone involved in Shrek 2 knew it, and thus the film is long on recycled bits and short on original ideas.
Which, of course, is exactly what its audience wants, so it's probably useless to criticize the filmmakers for delivering it. To be fair, it's not as if Shrek 2 isn't entertaining, despite obviously being crafted by committee, and designed to please, if not all of the people all of the time, at least as many of them as possible for as much time as possible.
MOVIE BOX |
The Shrek films aren't the only recent animated movies offering as much entertainment for kids as they do for adults. Here are four more cartoons you don't need kids to justify watching. You might even enjoy them better if you banish the tykes to day care.
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The plot picks up where the first film left off, with ogre Shrek (voiced by Mike Meyers) and ogre-fied Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz) newly married and on their honeymoon. They return home to talking-animal sidekick Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and a summons from Fiona's parents, King Harold and Queen Lillian (John Cleese and Julie Andrews), to come to the their land of Far, Far Away.
The king and queen think their daughter has married a prince, though, so they get a rough awakening when the couple shows up in town—a town that, in keeping with the first film's gentle ribbing of all things Disney, looks an awful lot like Hollywood. As King Harold determines Shrek is not good enough for his daughter, he's prodded on by the evil Fairy Godmother (Absolutely Fabulous' Jennifer Saunders, matching her AbFab co-star Joanna Lumley's fairy-tale turn in Ella Enchanted) and Prince Charming (Rupert Everett), who was supposed to get the girl in the first place.
The problem is that there is no clear villain nor driving conflict for the plot to focus on. Early in the film, the king dispatches Puss-in-Boots (a very funny Antonio Banderas) to kill Shrek, but the cat assassin quickly abandons that plan for no discernible reason other than to give the ogre another talking-animal sidekick. This is the perfect example of the film's dichotomy: While Puss is probably the funniest character in the movie, plot-wise his presence makes little sense.
So it goes throughout the movie, with elements introduced and dropped as if the whole thing is being made up as it goes along. Along the way, there are the same cutesy, if sometimes obvious, pop culture references that made the first film fresh and sophisticated, as well as the same "be yourself" message that becomes problematic if you think about it too hard. There also are plenty of burp and fart jokes for the less mature audience members, whatever their age.
While some critics took the original film to task for its smugness, and perhaps inadvertent perpetuation of racial stereotypes embodied in Murphy's Stepin Fetchit-style Donkey, anyone criticizing the Shrek franchise on sociological grounds has largely missed the point. Like its predecessor, Shrek 2 often mistakes imitation for satire, and clearly thinks it's far smarter than it really is—and wants you to think so, too. Donkey is less of an Uncle Tom figure than he was in the first go-round, though his ill-advised duet with Puss on "Livin' La Vida Loca" at the film's end is painfully off-putting, as much for its mugging resemblance to minstrelsy as for the simple fact that the song is terrible.
But this is not the right sort of film to dissect for its cultural subtext. It's such an innocuous Hollywood product that you can't help but love it while feeling bad for loving it, and that is the genius that is Shrek 2. It's comfortable, easy and warm, and if it leaves you with a slight feeling of déjà vu at the end, what else did you expect?