DreamWorks, you've done it again, my friends.

I went into this one with just a twinge of doubt, as I had read several accounts of the high concentration of potty humor and I wasn't really pleased with the casting job. I'm not a huge fan of Eddie Murphy, John Lithgow is certainly not on my list of Top 200 Actors of All Time, I could do very well without Mike Myers, and Cameron Diaz...it'd be safer if I just didn't go there. But despite these minor problems, my worries were immediately dissolved when Smashmouth's "All Star" began blaring through the speaker system.

I had seen a show on TechTV that morning called The Tech of Shrek, so I was expecting some mind blowing animation. I was not at all prepared for the mind blowingness of what was in store. There were a few spots where the resolution wasn't quite high enough for the big screen and you got that sickening blurry motion, but what else is new? While purely traditional animation will forever remain my favorite style, entirely CGI can be almost as amazing and this movie showed that the medium is really going places.

The music was great. Any animated movie that dares to use the Freaks and Geeks theme song is okay by me. And Smashmouth is, again, awesome. The score was marvy, co-written by John Powell, one of the geniuses behind the El Dorado score. When Fiona started singing, my mom leaned over and asked why they "always have to sing in these movies?" I told her to wait a minute - this should be good. She didn't prematurely accuse the movie of being conventional again. In fact, both she and my sister's friend, who had joined us, remarked only that is was "a weird movie" when it was over. Yes. It was. That was the point.

I adore parodies. Everything about them is just wonderful. And seeing every well known fairy tale with the highly uplifting message that the beautiful and perfect shall inherit the earth and all the even mildly plain can do is hope to magically become beautiful so that they, too, can inherit the earth savagely massacred by a crude, cynical beast who amounts to, as my mother said, "a mass of green Fimo that has yet to be baked" is pure bliss. Dearie me, that was a long sentence.

Shrek boils down to a simple plot that has been done countless times, but never quite right. Until now. The ending becomes fairly predictable as the action progresses, but it's the getting there that's really the fun. I've promised myself that I won't give anything away. So, suffice to say I almost died watching the final large blow to the Big D. Course, I was the only one in the whole theater (which was relatively packed for an animated feature at 9:55 PM) who found it even remotely humorous...

When all is said and done, Fiona is the only fairy tale princess who gets what she deserves, Shrek is the only hero who deserves what he gets, the dragon is the only oversized lizard to get a decent meal, and Donkey is the only sidekick who...oops! Almost slipped, there! The only reason El Dorado and GMD beat this gem out is that they have a lot less potty humor and a skosh more eye candy.

We'll see how Atlantis measures up next month. And a word of precaution, Mr. Eisner - merely giving Milo glasses ain't gonna cut the mustard.

Hey, Robin here. A Robin a couple years wiser than the loser who originally wrote this page. Mike Myers is FANTASTIC. I love him to death. And this is one of his best roles EVER. So sorry, Mr. Myers ^_^
I also like John Lithgow a bit more.

Shrek was directed by Andrew Adamson and Victoria Jenson, produced by Jeffrey Katzenberg, Aron Warner, John H. Williams and David Goodwine, written by Joe Stilman, Roger S.H. Schulman, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, and based on the book by William Steig.

Thanks to Dreamworks SKG Fansite for the pictures.

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Updated December 28, 2003.