Shrek

Rating:
Summary: This movie undercuts its entire premise
Review: Marketed as a PG movie for the entire family (with the obligatory Shrek-based candy and toy tie-ins), Shrek has some rather significant problems trying to inhabit that particular demographic.

Shrek centers around a big green ogre in a fairy tale world (the film cleverly borrows from many Grimms tales, and sprinkles elements of them around this world). A lonely soul, Shrek is ostracized and feared by the rest of the fairy tale creatures -- so he lives a solitary life in his swamp.

That is, until the other fairy tale creatures are driven off their property by the devious (and diminutive) Lord Farquad, and onto Shrek's property. Shrek cuts a deal with Farquad in an effort to reclaim his property: If Shrek can rescue the Princess Fiona from the dragon and deliver her to Lord Farquad to be the Lord's bride, then Shrek will get his swamp back, all to himself.

So he sets off on his quest, with a talking donkey (played by Eddie Murphy) in tow.

OK, so far, so good. Clever entertainment that is fun for kids, and sharp and witty enough for adults to enjoy. But then things start getting ugly. The underlying premise (or message, if you prefer) of this movie is tolerance of those who are different. The movie is trying to say, "It doesn't matter what's on the outside -- it's what is in the heart that matters." Shrek is a big ogre, but he is simply misunderstood, and people need to see him beyond his looks and accept him for what he really is.

A noble message for kids, right? But the movie completely undercuts these lofty goals and obliterates all of its legitimacy with its depiction of Lord Farquad. See, the Lord is a "little person." He is very short. So, the movie spends a great deal of time making fun of the Lord's height deficiency -- thereby betraying its central theme of tolerance and the "looks don't matter" ethos.

If this weren't bad enough, the short jokes don't stop at the Lord's body height. No, they continue on to make references to his apparent shortness in the, well, "private area." Hollywood being Hollywood, they just couldn't resist putting these references into the film to give it "edge" ("edge" being the Hollywood term for "crudity"). The Lord's castle itself is in the shape of a phallic symbol. The Lord gets stiff while gazing at a picture of the princess. And the characters in the movie have quite a few smirking chuckles at the expense of the Lord's height and presumed lack of, er, prowess.

So much for clearly getting its "message" across to kids.

On top of all that, the talking donkey says a few non-kiddie words.

I really dislike this kind of movie. It's the kind of movie that has so much good stuff going for it, so much cleverness (the references to familiar Grimms fairy tales are a kick), and such great production values (the computer graphics are stunning), that it is just an absolute shame that it has to be ruined by unnecessary crudeness. (But I guess every Mike Myers movie has to have at least a few crude male anatomy jokes in it, huh?)

On the surface, this movie has a lot going for it. But after all of the computer graphics wizardry, clever fairy tale gags, and so on, it ultimately comes down to what it always comes down to: the Story. In this case, the creators of this film betrayed the premise of the movie just for the sake of a few crude chuckles. Par for the course these days, I guess. But it's too bad. This could have been a GREAT G-Rated movie, and would still be chock-full of witty humor, a la any good Pixar movie. But no. Too bad indeed.

Rating:
Summary: This movie is more funny than anything that came from Pixar
Review: Eddie Murphy in a children's movie? How will he retain any sense of humor without making South Park proud with his swearing? Mike Meyers? Hmmm. But these two make things hilarious in ways funny for everyone in Shrek, one of three kid's computer animated movies this year. Mike Meyers is Shrek, a ogre (oger?) who wants to live his solitary, albeit disgusting (watch him create a candle) life in peace. But this peace is not to be, it seems, for a group of the king's men, who are forcing fairy-tale folk (Pinnochio, talking animals, Seven Dwarves) into slavery. One of them is a talking donkey, who is absolutely hysterical. His first scene is definitely funny. In fact, either he or Shrek is funny at least every 30 seconds on average. Anyway, the donkey seeks shelter at Shrek's house, because everyone's afraid of ogres. All the others seem to think so too, and soon Shrek's house is overrun with "fairy-tale things." Shrek strikes up a bargain with the cruel king (who has a few issues). Shrek will go and rescue the princess, and in return, Shrek gets his swamp back. The donkey accompanies him on the voyage.
The princess is not all she seems, however, and soon Shrek has romantic feelings for her. This results in a climactic fight in a wedding hall as Shrek manages to win the girl and defeat the evil king in one. Come on, sequel! This is a must for the family and any family with a child or children under 13 have Gotta See This Movie. No exceptions.

Rating:
Summary: Terrific!
Review: Love it, love it, love it!!! This movie is hilarious from start to finish. Plenty of humor for both kids and adults. I love the jabs at Disney and the spoofs of other movies like Star Wars and The Matrix. Mike Myers is perfect as the voice of Shrek though with the Scottish accent you would never recognize that it's him. Eddie Murphy is perfect as Donkey. Cameron Diaz is a perfect princess and John Lithgow is, as always, totally insane! And don't miss the Shrek Karaoke Dance Party trailer that follows the closing credits. It's a rip!

Rating:
Summary: L-A-ME!! DON'T WASTE MONEY
Review: This movie is totally lame. The plot is cute, but the animation and the overall appearance of the characters is terrible! The humor in here is cheesy, slightly obscene (to little ears) at times. It is hard to buy the Matrix-inspired action and the modern-day vulgar humor. There is nothing reedeming about the plot or the movie itself. SERIOUSLY, don't buy this.

Rating:
Summary: Just good ol' plain fun!
Review: Besides what everyone else has written I would like to add that if you enjoy a good attempt at an Irish accent (which I do), if you like when John Lithgow says "I'm GOR-GEOUS!" on 3rd Rock (yup), and if you tend to like Mike Meyers (which I can also confess to) this is a real trip!
As Mikey's brother says, "Try it, you'll like it"! ("I thank you." - Goldmember) I know, I know I think I'm funny and I'm really not... tell me something I don't know.

Rating:
Summary: Cheery and Fun!
Review: I rented Shrek on DVD and I liked this movie so much I bought the movie on DVD. It is a very cute and witty movie based on fairy tales but kind of a wacky spoof on the old classic fairy tales. Mike Myers is very good a the voice of an ogre named Shrek but the rest of the cast is great too including Cameron Diaz as Princess Fiona, John Lithgow as Farquadd and Eddie Murphy as Donkey. The movie is really cute and has humor for the kids and humor for the adults too that will go over most little kids heads. The DVD has great picture and sound and the extra features are ok but nothing really exciting. I actually prefer Monsters, Inc a little more then Shrek but I still think Shrek is a great movie too and I recommend this cheery and fun feel good movie. I have the 2 DVD set which has Shrek presented in both OAR widescreen (1:85:1) and edited Fullscreen (1:33:1), I myself dislike the edited version and much prefer the widescreen version because I hate how the edited fullscreen looks! BTW: Mike Myers does a good Scottish accent in this movie but his Scottish accent was even better in So I Married an Axe Murderer.

Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: This is perhaps one of the best movies ever written. It follows Shrek and a donkey as they try and rescue a princess so that the King can marry her. This will allow Shrek to go back to his lifestlye of scaring the townfolk as the King promises to take back all the creatures that take over his swamp. What Shrek doesn't count on is that he would fall in love with the princess.
Sometimes a movie comes along that bridges the generation gap, this is one of them. While watching this with a female friend and 3 children it was amazing how at times we would be laughing at different things. The children would laugh at scenes that they remember but wouldn't laugh at the scenes we were as they hadn't grown up with the movies we did. Finally the karoke song at the end is almost as good as the movie.

Rating:
Summary: ogre and donkey
Review: This movie is so hilarious. Great for adults and Kids. I loved the ending the most when all of Walt Disney World dances. Oh what Fun !!! I love this film and I am not even a kid.

Rating:
Summary: Very well put together.
Review: I really enjoyed Shrek. Shrek himself was pretty funny and Donkey was histerical. Fiona wasn't supposed to be TOO funny, and Farquad being short got old after a while. But all in all it was a funny movie, worth seeing over and over.

Rating:
Summary: The Moose Hole - Just an Ogre
Review: The rivalry between the Walt Disney Company and Dreamworks S.K.G. never seems to get old as each one does something to out do the other though it usually involves Dreamworks copy-cating Disney's moves. For example, Dreamworks partnered up with the computer animation studio, PDI, which is eerily familiar to the partnership made between Disney and Pixar Animation Studios just a few years earlier. Their first feature film together, Antz, was a modest success compared to Pixar's A Bug's Life, which was released nearly one month after. Now Dreamworks once again turns to PDI to create a full length animated film based on a children's book entitled Shrek. Mixing in the voice talents of rising stars Mike Myers and Cameron Diaz as well the famous comedian, Eddie Murphy, might make this relatively modest feature a big hit. But are Katzenberg's intentions more then making an entertaining family film? Did somebody forget to mention it takes more then a few jabs at Disney and their fairy-tale oriented films? Bet Disney is real happy about that and they'll be even happier if it proves successful.

The story for Shrek takes a twisted look at the classic fairy tales like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Pinocchio. The story goes that Shrek is an ugly, green ogre who lives alone in his swamp wanting only to be left alone and for travelers to stay off his property. But things don't go quite as they should when a load of fairy tale creatures evade his swamp and take over his home. It seems they were dumped there by Lord Farquaad in order to rid his perfect kingdom of Duloc from the "fairy tale trash". Among the creatures is an annoying talking donkey named Donkey. He befriends the crabby Shrek as they travel together to the kingdom of Duloc to talk to short-statured ruler. Farquaad agrees to hand over the deed to the swamp if Shrek fetches his new wife, Princess Fiona, from the keep of the fire breathing dragon. Along the way, Shrek discovers that it doesn't matter what you look like on the outside but how people feel about you on the inside. The story for Shrek seemed like any other fairy tale telling but falls way short of the classics. Too much time was spent picking on the Walt Disney Company and their fairy-tale animated films for much original ideas that worked.

Though the animated film showcases a wide-variety of voice talent, you really couldn't see that in this film. And in many instances, it is not the fault of the actors and actresses but rather the writing talent. Mike Myers, known for his comedic roles in such films as Austin Powers and Wayne's World, unfortunately down plays his comedic genius in this film. Myers isn't given much to work with here and when does fall upon something, it usually involved Donkey. The best lines of Shrek come from Eddie Murphy's annoying talking donkey named ...well, Donkey. The bad thing about this is that the side-kick draws too much attention away from the rest of the cast. Cameron Diaz, who voices Princess Fiona, is decent but nothing extraordinary unlike John Lithgow who voices Lord Farquuad. He is nothing short, pardon the joke, of spectacular and the movie-going public wouldn't expect less from a Shakespearian actor.

Overall, Shrek is a moderate film at best and doesn't even come close to living up to the hype that DreamWorks and the movie going public built it up to be. The problem is that there really isn't anything in the two hour feature that is all that original. Many of the jokes that are made are aimed at Disney and have probably been seen millions of times at one point or another. Is this the real reason Katzenberg agreed to the film? To make fun of his former bosses? If so then he needs some serious psychological help. But the bottom line is that Shrek lacks the greatness of other computer animated films like Toy Story, A Bug's Life, or Monsters Inc.