directors
Andrew
Adamson
Vicky Jenson
screenwriters
Ted Elliott
Terry Rossio
Joe Stillman
Roger S.H. Schulman
additional
dialogue by
Cody Cameron
Chris Miller
Conrad Vernon
based on
the children's book by
William
Steig
producers
Jeffrey Katzenberg
Aron Warner
John H. Williams
music
Harry Gregson-Williams
John Powell
editor
Sim Evan-Jones
cast (voices)
Mike Myers (Shrek)
Eddie Murphy (Donkey)
Cameron Diaz (Princess Fiona)
John Lithgow (Lord Farquaad)
Vincent Cassel (Monsieur Hood)
mpaa rating: PG
running
time: 90m
u.s.
release: May 18, 2001
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
official website
see also:
- shrek
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If you're in the mood for a
postmodern, ironic fairy-tale spoof, and if you're young enough
not to have seen what went before (Jay Ward's Fractured Fairy
Tales, William Goldman and Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride,
Shelley Duvall's tongue-in-cheek Faerie Tale Theatre,
Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods, James Finn Garner's
Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, Jon Scieszka and
Lane Smith's The Stinky Cheese Man, etc.), you might have
a good time at the new DreamWorks computer-toon Shrek.
Or maybe you won't; like DreamWorks' Antz,
this movie goes so far in including hip references to amuse bored
parents that I'm tempted to say Shrek isn't even really
for kids at all. At the Friday-afternoon, packed-with-kids screening
I attended, an extended riff on the "Do You Know the Muffin
Man" ditty got no laughs whatsoever; not much else did either,
aside from the tried-and-true fart and butt humor.
Shrek is based more or less -- more less than
more -- on a 1990 children's book by legendary cartoonist
William Steig, who was well into his eighties when he wrote and
drew it, yet managed to deliver something far funkier and pricklier
than the cadre of hip DreamWorks whippersnappers (two directors
and seven writers are credited) have yielded. The book's conversion
into an expensive kiddie flick painted with bits and bytes may
remind some of the unhappy fate of Chris Van Allsburg's brisk,
haunting book Jumanji,
which got morphed into a flabby Robin Williams vehicle. Shrek
isn't as bad as that; some of it is diverting (I enjoyed the
scenes dealing with a love-smitten dragon, coyly fluttering its
huge eyelashes). But I can't imagine it occupying a warm space
in children's hearts, since it skewers clichés they've
only just begun to absorb. Can't we allow kids a few years of
innocence before we pop it with the ever-ready pin of irony?
Mike Myers indulges his Scotphilia
yet again, bringing his cheerful brogue to the lead character
Shrek, a green ogre who wants to be left alone to mope in his
swamp. Problem: the nasty Lord Farquaad (the usual hammy voice
work by John Lithgow) has banished all fairy-tale creatures from
his kingdom, and they have all taken refuge in Shrek's stomping
grounds. To restore them to their homes, Shrek must undertake
a quest on Farquaad's behalf: rescue the fair Princess Fiona
(voice by Cameron Diaz) from a dragon's lair, with the help of
a talkative donkey (Eddie Murphy, enjoying this stage of his
career as an entertainer at children's parties).
Shrek moves fast, and its quartet of credited writers
(including two who worked on Disney's Aladdin and DreamWorks'
Small
Soldiers) keep the pop references popping. Much has been
made of the fact that DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg
may be sending a poison valentine to his former bosses at Disney,
and indeed the Mouse comes in for some swatting; when the donkey
begins to segue into a heartfelt song, he's rudely cut off by
Shrek, who insists, "No singing" -- an obvious swipe
at Disney's penchant for Oscar-ready ballads. The outskirts of
the evil Farquaad's kingdom, too, from its "It's a Small
World" clutter of singing animatronic heads to the rope-maze
guarded by a man in a big-head Farquaad costume, fairly scream
"Disneyland." Shrek bends over backwards to
assure us that it won't be as square as Disney's stuff.
That's nice, but it doesn't
assure us of much else. Too much of Shrek seems like gags
dreamed up by jaded adults. One scene, in which Princess Fiona
makes short work of Robin Hood's Merry Men, includes a poke at
The
Matrix and its crouching-tigress-hidden-wires, frozen-in-mid-air
battles. First problem with this: the Matrix money shots
have already been overparodied. Second, what kids in the audience
would have seen the R-rated Matrix in order to get the
joke? It's there for Mom and Dad. Third, Princess Fiona's battle
skills are established here but then never repeated; in a later
scene, when surrounded by Farquaad's guards, she's suddenly helpless.
Shrek's fighting acumen is similarly inconsistent; he's shown
in an early scene laying a smackdown on a bunch of Farquaad's
knights -- in a scene eerily reminiscent of A
Knight's Tale, with its backdrop of Joan Jett's "Bad
Reputation" -- and then later, when surrounded by the same
Farquaad guards, he's suddenly helpless too. In short,
the ability of our heroes to defend themselves depends on whether
the filmmakers need an easy laugh or thrill at a given moment.
The movie is capably designed
and enthusiastically voiced, though computer-generated animation
still hasn't yet lost its creepy plastic sheen (compare it with
the advanced yet homey Claymation seen in Chicken
Run, for instance). I cannot -- perhaps it is a function
of my age -- look at movies like Shrek (or Toy Story)
without being aware that I'm watching digital shadows; the characters
seem locked behind Plexiglas, untouched and untouchable. Untouching,
too. Shrek gestures towards a typical humanistic message
(Don't judge others by their appearance), but the story is too
busy trashing other legends and archetypes to emerge as a legend
of its own. One can't help thinking that The Princess Bride
did it earlier and funnier, and did not take five years in the
making or involve armies of techies sitting in front of Macs.
There's no real reason Shrek couldn't have been a regular,
drawn cartoon; there's little reason it couldn't have just stayed
a book, either. If computer animation is all that sets it apart,
then it doesn't have much setting it apart.
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