Okay, so maybe Spy Kids wasn’t the biggest and overhyped kids’ blockbuster of the summer after all. Toys R Us already has a line of action figures and play sets in their color ad this week, too. After this movie, though, I don’t really expect my five-year-old to ask me to go right out and buy him any.
My husband wanted to see this particular movie more than I did, which is usually my indication to just let him take the boys and save seven bucks on my ticket. When it comes to animation, I have a finicky palate. I don’t do cute and saccharine, and I don’t do cheesy. My husband, on the other hand, is satisfied with cut-rate anime that poorly represents the genre (i.e., Vampire Hunter D, Street Fighters Alpha) if it has nifty special effects and the lion’s share of blood-spurting battle scenes. And just when I thought my husband couldn’t bring home any tackier animation rentals from Hollywood Video, my five-year-old pipes up ’’Hey, Dad, wheresdaDragonBallZEE?’’ (If I didn’t know better, I’d almost assume that Dragon Ball Z is the redheaded stepcousin to Tranzor Z, a shoddily drawn and voiced show from around 1985-1986, only with better color)
I’m outnumbered and outgunned. Not only that, but my oldest son saw the commercials for this movie on Nickelodeon and started saying ’’Oooh, Momma, I wanna go see dat one.’’ It was a losing battle. We went to the early matinee.
Shrek is an ogre that lives in a dilapidated cottage in the swamp of an otherwise enchanted forest. As far as ogres go, he’s not all that hideous (Hollywood had to make him marketable enough for the fast food kids meals), nor all that funny. I also didn’t know that ogres had Scottish accents. Mike Meyers revisits his multiple characters from ’’I Married an Axe Murderer’’ and it does nothing to enhance the character. Any other celebrity could have done the voice of an ogre just as well (in the case of Dana Carvey, or perhaps the late Phil Hartman, probably even better). I just expected someone ’’wackier’’ in Shrek’s role. And as much as it shames me to say it, I expected more fart and potty humor from this movie. I didn’t expect this to be so bland and contrived. Eddie Murphy is cute as the donkey, but he was funnier in Mulan as the dragon.
Shrek and Donkey cross paths when Donkey’s owner tries to sell him to a band of Prince Farquhad’s knights that are collecting a bounty for any enchanted fairy tale characters residing in the city limits. (I told you there was no plot.) Donkey’s owner tries to milk the knights for ten shillings, claiming ’’He can talk!’’ The donkey clams up when they tell her to prove it, until he is accidentally doused with some pixie dust (and hence, the scene from the previews ’’Now I’m a FLYIN’, talkin’ donkey!’’) Shrek scares away Donkey’s would-be captors and wins himself an unwanted sidekick. Just when Shrek has his fill of unwanted companionship, he suddenly ends up playing host to all of the fairy tale characters that Farquhad’s knights rounded up and ’’relocated’’ to Shrek’s swamp. Since it was Farquhad’s royal decree that landed them there, it was up to Shrek to go to Farquhad’s court to change his mind so he could regain his privacy. One of the things that you will notice about Farquhad’s court (and that lingers throughout this movie) is that it reminds you of Disney. You have a guy dressed up as Farquhad with a huge mask on his head, you have an entrance with velvet ropes like Disneyland’s front gates, and you have this annoying ’’small-world-after-all’’ music box at the information booth that sings you all of the rules of conduct.
So, after kicking all of Farquhad’s knights posteriors at the court so that he could have an audience for his complaints (those scenes weren’t all that funny, either; it winked at Wrestlemania when one of the women in the audience yelled ’’Give him the chair!’’), Farquhad had a better idea. Rather than kill the ogre, why not send him out on a mission to rescue his future bride? According to Farquhad’s magic mirror (yanked right out of Snow White), which has the personality of hosts from ’’The Dating Game’’, Farquhad has to marry a princess to become king of his city. His three eligible brides are a) Cinderella, the ’’mentally abused’’ servant girl, b) Snow White, ’’who lives with seven men, but don’t let that bother you, ’’ or c) Princess Fiona, who is guarded by a moat of flaming lava and a fire-breathing dragon, waiting to experience love’s true kiss. It was kind of redundant to have that much flame surrounding the imperiled princess. No one said Farquhad had to rescue his OWN princess, did they? As the previews said, ’’The prince ISN’T charming.’’ Unfortunately, he also isn’t that funny. If you expect ’’3rd Rock’’ slapstick, you’ll be disappointed.
Overall, I was bored. My kids were bored. My husband was bored, even though he tried to convince me that he thought it was good after we walked out of the theater (he didn’t want to admit that he wasted the money on something that I said would be mediocre before). The article building this up as a hilarious adult fairy tale in Newsweek lied like a rug; it was only moderately effective as a sendup of Disney. If you wanted a more clever spoof of Grimm’s fairy tales, I recommend going to your local live theater and seeing a musical rendition of ’’Into the Woods.’’ My youngest son kept trying to hop off of my lap and walk down the aisle to the exit, and my oldest pouted when I wouldn’t let him go with his dad to buy more popcorn.
The jokes were made more adults than for kids. Even gimmicks like flatulence were too subtle(!) and underused (or just plain misused). Gross-out humor like Shrek pulling a plug of wax out of his ear and lighting it like a candle were last resorts.
Here are a short list of pros to tell you why this is at least worth renting for the sake of telling yourself ’’I just wanted to see how it was because I didn’t know if I wanted to see it at the theater’’:
Nifty animation: The minute details were impeccable, from the quirk of an upper lip to the lowering of an eyebrow. The landscapes looked real in some forest scenes. I also liked the female dragon that was holding Fiona captive. (The goofy red lipstick was a nice touch, and she had a crush on Donkey.)
The appearances-aren’t-everything moral: ’’Ogres are like onions; we have lots of layers!’’ Sure, it’s cliched, but it works. Not only do we learn that it’s important not to judge someone because they are ugly, it’s equally important not to hate someone because they are beautiful.
The solitary plot twist (albeit too little, too late): If you blink, you might miss the scene when the mirror tells Farquhad that Princess Fiona is almost perfect except for one tiny flaw that occurs each nightfall...Expect a pretty good rip-off of ’’The Swan Princess, ’’ even though that one is not a Disney film. (just another Disney knockoff)
The frog doesn’t turn into a prince: Thank goodness. Shrek is still just as green and gross at the end of the film as he is in the beginning. It’s about time.
No singing animals: Except for a singing bird whose head explodes when Fiona hits a high note. Anyone who has ever despised the shrill, sickeningly sweet scene with Snow White and the birds singing ’’Whistle While You Work’’ will love that part. Expect some favorites from Smashmouth.
Funny coincidence: When my five-year-old talked about the movie at home, he kept talking about the characters using their real names. Maybe it was due to the commercials that Nickelodeon kept beating us over the head with. All day yesterday, it was ’’Cameron Diaz was a ogre!’’ That tickled me for some reason.
Bottom Line: If your kids are under the age of twelve, they might hate it.