Posted on 05/21/2004 10:41:34 AM PDT by Licensed-To-Carry
Let's take nothing away from the original Shrek, a brazen, howlingly funny romp through fairy-tale history, with the occasional pause to mercilessly skewer the sanctimony of the Walt Disney Co. But Shrek 2 is an entirely different beast, a movie with a heart so big that no movie screen could possibly contain it. This is a sequel every bit as funny and imaginative as the original -- and twice as tender and wise. It's bottled joy, an unadulterated bliss-out and certainly one of the very best movies you'll see all year.
If Shrek was about fighting for the most beautiful (albeit plump and bright-green-colored) girl in the world, Shrek 2 is about fighting for the right to love her, when everyone around you seeks to pass judgment. So off we go to the Kingdom of Far Far Away -- a computer-animated refraction of Los Angeles -- where Shrek (again voiced, sublimely, by Mike Myers) and Fiona (Cameron Diaz) have been invited by Fiona's parents, the King (John Cleese) and Queen (Julie Andrews), to attend a royal ball in honor of their marriage. It's a witty reinvention of every Guess Who's Coming to Dinner story ever told. Little do Fiona's parents know that their daughter is now an ogre for life and married to an even bigger ogre. When they find out the truth -- and when the nefarious Fairy Godmother (Jennifer Saunders) shows up determined to get Fiona to marry her son, Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) -- the Shrek/Fiona union finds itself under siege.
Co-director/co-screenwriter Andrew Adamson, in an article in the Los Angeles Times, has already 'fessed up to the movie's central metaphor, but you don't need a road map to see what Shrek 2 is getting at. Not when one of the characters, just after expressing distaste at the notion of two ogres in love, hastens to add, "Not that there's anything wrong with that." In this year when a certain head of state seeks to write an exclusionary definition of "marriage" into the U.S. Constitution, Shrek 2 contends otherwise: No one has the right to tell you whom you can love; those who preach the loudest about the right way to live are often the biggest hypocrites. This is a movie that is ogre and proud.
It's a movie, too, that celebrates a very modern notion of family. Donkey is back, voiced by the inimitable Eddie Murphy -- nagging, obnoxious, always getting in Shrek's way but perhaps the most loyal sidekick one could have. Also returning are Pinocchio, the Three Blind Mice, Little Red Riding Hood's wolf, and the Gingerbread Man, who show up to help Shrek vanquish Prince Charming, in a climactic sequence so maniacally bonkers that you may find yourself (as I did) wanting to leap out of your seat and start cheering long before it has ended. Oh, and Shrek 2 has one other ace up its sleeve, a rapier-wielding cat named Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas), to whom Donkey takes an instant dislike ("If we need an expert on licking ourselves, we'll give you a call"). This bad kitty, too, becomes part of the motley Shrek crew, though never in the ways you might expect.
As in the original, the animation is lush and breathtaking. And if such a thing is even possible, this sequel is even more breakneck-paced and tightly constructed than the first movie, as visual quotes from dozens of other movies, from Spider-Man to The Lord of the Rings to Harry Potter to even Beverly Hills Cop flash before our eyes but never distract from the central story. Indeed, that may be the greatest triumph of the Shrek films: They are postmodern, pop-culture hodgepodges that are also one-of-a-kind visions.
As for the greatest virtue of the two Shrek movies? It's their vigorous deconstruction of fairy-tale notions, their pragmatic yet deeply humanist belief that in life you have to make your own fairy tale. That's a message that arrives just in time, after a spring movie season that included the likes of The Prince & Me, Laws of Attraction and 13 Going on 30 -- moldy fantasies about women who need to be put in their place and rescued by a dashing dreamboat. The choice is thus: You can spend a lifetime chasing after the ideals Hollywood prescribes. Or you can be true, be just, be open-minded and fight for those who love you -- and live (mostly) happily ever after. Shrek 2 shows us why it's no contest.
Christopher Kelly
(817) 390-7032
cmkelly@star-telegram.com
I don't know anything about this movie but based on the review it must be pushing the queer agenda stongly.
Kelly at the Star-Telegram always pushes the gay agenda and has a sideline hobby of reviewing gay porn movies on the internet. I think I'll pass judgment on Shrek II until I see the movie or at least get a wider range of reviews.
Adding overt gay propaganda to the scatological bent of the original? Sounds like another "must miss" film.
I'd like to see this critic attempt a similar pompous pronouncement if Shrek 2 had been about two gay orges.
No surprise here, given the roles he has played in the past.
Actually, the movie isn't pushing a gay agenda. The review is trying to hijack a movie to promote a gay agenda he would LIKE the movie to be promoting. Its somewhat akin to when gay groups go back in time and label every famous person is history as being secretly taking it in the *ss. Its revisionist history, but its not true just because they say it is.
orges = ogres (I must have been thinking "orgies")
Another movie I won't see.
And all he showed is his ignorance!
"Not that there's anything wrong with that."
is the biggest, longest running joke on Seinfeld. If he wasn't so blinded by his own agenda, he'd see that it's a throw to that show, not President Bush.
"Co-director/co-screenwriter Andrew Adamson, in an article in the Los Angeles Times, has already 'fessed up to the movie's central metaphor, but you don't need a road map to see what Shrek 2 is getting at. Not when one of the characters, just after expressing distaste at the notion of two ogres in love, hastens to add, "Not that there's anything wrong with that." In this year when a certain head of state seeks to write an exclusionary definition of "marriage" into the U.S. Constitution, Shrek 2 contends otherwise: No one has the right to tell you whom you can love; those who preach the loudest about the right way to live are often the biggest hypocrites. This is a movie that is ogre and proud. "
this would make sense if it was 2 ogres of the same sex, this is someone trying to hijack a quote/theme.
That dude needs to get a life.
Hey, it's a male ogre marrying a female ogre. Now, the donkey had something going with that female dragon, but they're weren't trying to get married.
Exactly.
How desperate do you have to be with your own self worth if you're reduced to using a silly movie to push your agenda.
Errrrrr, how is this a Bush bashing? Am I missing something?
bump
It was a reference to "Seinfeld"...not Bush. Kelly's a moron.
Ping
The title of this thread was very poorly chosen. The only one bashing Bush is the damn reviewer. The ogres in question in Shrek are opposite sex.
I doubt there's any gayness in the film.
Sometimes, FReepers jump way off the deep end. Not everything is about Bush, our politics, etc.
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