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Shrek
Hilarious, irreverent digitally-animated fable from the makers of Antz. A Scottish ogre, a talking donkey, a midget tyrant, a princess with a secret and a whole raft of fairy-tale characters poke fun at uptightness and dole out liberalism
Even before the credits, the 'Once Upon A Time...' tweeness of traditional animation is knocked for six. The pages of a scene-setting story-book are promptly torn up by Shrek's eponymous hero, a green ogre voiced by Mike Myers (in a variant on his Austin Powers Fat Bastard Scots accent, for some reason), and used for toilet paper. Shrek lives alone in a swamp. Despite having a fearsome reputation, all he wants is peace. Unfortunately, local tyrant Lord Farquaad (Lithgow) wants to rid himself of fairy-tale creatures and has soldiers rounding them up for relocation. The poor Gingerbread Man even gets tortured for info - "No, not my buttons, not my gumdrop buttons!" Before long, Shrek's quiet swamp has become a reservation, his shack squatted by the Three Blind Mice, the Red Riding Hood wolf and the Seven Dwarves. In a bid to rid himself of unwanted guests, Shrek, accompanied by a sidekick in the form of a motor-mouth Donkey (Murphy, in similar mode to Mulan) visits Farquaad (say it quickly). The diminutive baddie convinces Shrek to go on a quest to retrieve the beautiful Princess Fiona (Diaz); if he succeeds, the swamp will be vacated. Cue adventure, complete with action movie sequence (Shrek running toward the 'camera' in slow-mo as a fireball explodes behind him) and even a The Matrix/Charlie's Angels-style kung-fu fight for Fiona. It's all great fun: the pace eager, the wisecracks thick and fast (mostly from Donkey) and the animation superb, at times remarkably three-dimensional. Despite the digs at Disney-style dictatorial moralising, Shrek eventually settles down into a familiarly earnest exponent of forgiveness, loyalty, and friendship - but with a strong lesson about overcoming differences (ethnic, national, social) as presented by the oddball family unit comprising an ogre, a princess and a talking donkey. Verdict Hugely entertaining, sassy and great-looking, Shrek is an imaginative rewriting of 'Beauty And The Beast' that contains something for pretty much everyone. |
