One ugly green ogre and a whole lot of money! (Shrek (DVD))

Member Name: loulou6

Product:	Shrek (DVD)
Date:	06/07/01 (137 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great story, brilliant animation, exceedingly funny

Disadvantages: too short!

5 years in the making and Dreamworks have done it again, they have an animation film that’s about to be a huge summer movie success. I would even rate it beside the great Toy Story 2 – it’s that good, but in a slightly different way.

The reason why I wanted to see this movie is because I heard all the hoo-hah on the morning TV shows and even Jonathon Ross (on ‘Film 01’) enjoyed it, and that’s saying something! I wasn’t disappointed, the boyfriend and me toddled off to the local cineplex and paid our £2.80 entrance fee, armed with the largest diet Pepsi ever known to man and some Minstrels we chose and sat in our seats. I turned around and looked for the average age of the audience, I gave a sigh of relief, it was around 25! (ok, it WAS 9pm on a school day)

• The Storyline:-
Ogre, Princess, Donkey, Bad Guy, Kingdom, Dragon, Fight, Marriage, Happy Ending.

Ok, I think that’s the most basic storylines ever given in a Dooyoo review! But this film is far from being basic, there is plenty of jokes, (including the obligatory Ass jokes) there are skits from WWF style wrestling to a micky take of ‘The Matrix’. But most of the jokes come from the parodies of other ‘Fairy Tales’ such as Cinderella, Snow White, The 3 little Pigs (watch out for the break dancing scene) Sleeping Beauty et al. It’s a classic. (I’d tell you more, but you won’t go and see it)

• The Characterisation
Mike Myers plays Shrek with a Scottish brogue, (much, much different than ‘Fat B*****d’ in Austin Powers) but after a few moments you forget that he’s putting it on and you can settle down to enjoy the movie. Cameron Diaz is the voice of Princess Fiona, even though it’s done in a slightly ‘sickly sweet’ way, it doesn’t detract from the enjoyment at all. John Lithgow is Lord Farquaad, the diminutive wannabe King,
and I don’t think that anybody else could do a better baddie voice (well, except maybe Alan Rickman). Eddie Murphy is the voice of the donkey and ultimately steals the show, very much like a loudmouth cantankerous mother-in-law – it’s absolutely hilarious. His delivery is spot on, and has some of the funniest lines in the movie.

• The Animation
The animation is brilliant, everyone knows that computers are capable of amazing sequences, but the characters really did seem to come to life, all of which helps make a ‘childrens’ film more entertaining for the ‘adults’ among the audience. The backgrounds are beautiful, the swamp, Farquaad’s kingdom and even simple things like the grass look much more realistic than past CGI assisted films.

Ok, the thing of ‘inappropriate humour’, eg. Ass jokes, fart jokes, innuendo and the duet with a bluebird (soooo funny) are well, inappropriate. In other words you might not want your 4 or 5 year old going up to their teacher saying, “no one likes a kiss-Ass”. But all in all, if you can teach your offspring what is good/bad, you won’t have a problem, as quite a lot of the ‘older’ jokes are far too quick but it will still entertain them.

I think most adults will find Shrek very charming, there is enough satire and wit to keep the adults laughing and amused, at the same time, there is enough child humour (parping, ear-wax etc.) to keep them entertained as well. (although, I enjoyed the parping and ear-wax jokes as well!)

There are two morals to the story (what good fairy tale wouldn’t?) one is ‘don’t judge a book by it’s cover’, and the other is ‘not all things are what they initially appear to be’. It runs at about 1½hours, but it could’ve gone on for a little longer and I wouldn’t have become irritated.

All in all, a brilliant evenin
gs entertainment, worth parting with your hard earned cash and definitely worth buying on DVD/Video when it comes out.

Summary: