Blockbuster literacy cannot replace a plot

Rating: 3/10 (7 August 2004)

I am baffled. How can viewers say this is better than the original?! Its plot is thin, twists slow and few, characters hollow and underused... And most of the funnier moments come from the indispensable visual quoting of blockbusters (Alien, Lord of the Rings, etc., prompting a pathetic "did you spot them all" quest), in a poor display of cinema under-literacy. The only positive point is the technical improvement, but who cares about this? Shrek managed to be much, much funnier despite its matchstick people. The welcome infusion of new characters is a wasted effort, as none of them offer more than an inconsistent set of one-liners: the fairy godmother and Puss in boots are particularly disappointing, with only a couple of interesting scenes each, lost in a sea of contradicting and threadbare interaction. Key scenes are embarrassingly low on laughs (come on!, 5 minutes into the movie, the "are we there yet?/no" sequence felt like half an hour! I stopped laughing at such jokes when I was 3!). All in all, I'm very sorry to say that the few amusing moments are not worth the hour-and-a-half session. The original featured complex fun that made it very enjoyable for kids and grown-ups alike; I doubt children will even like this one (too slow, not exciting enough), and adults will hate it. I did. 3/10