Disappointing

Rating: Null/10 (1 June 2004)

Two or three years ago, when the first Shrek came out, it was indeed a very entertaining movie. All the characters were decent enough to not be annoying and Monseiur Hood was probably one of the funniest things I've seen in a cartoon in a while. So Shrek 2 is going to be as good, even better right? Right...?
I kept saying that to myself as the movie rolled along, but alas, nothing happened. While I laughed and chuckled a few times during the first one, I only remember laughing slightly once during this one. Not even the supposedly hysterical Puss in Boots could make me smile. Yes they did to this one what make the Mummy sequel so goddamn unbearable...they made it a love story. Centering around images of ogre's kissing and fondling one another, Shrek 2 seemingly was interested in same old formulaic story lines in a sense. I remember ten minutes in the middle of the movie that reminded me of Meet the Parents. It seems as if they just threw in supposed laughs at certain points of the movie and just used them over and over again (yeah the blind mice walk into walls and fall down...we get it, they're blind....funny).
As the characters go, Princess Fiona might as well have just been standing in the background, Donkey gets even more annoying and Shrek goes back and forth between being obnoxious and corny. Puss in Boots served absolutely no purpose besides trying to get a few more laughs (and introducing a new character for Shrek 3....yay...) and the king and queen had maybe ten minutes of screen time. They gave absolutely no memorable moments for arguably the funniest person in this movie (John Cleese) and for some odd reason, the fairy godmother had the most screen time. Yes, that's right, Shrek 2, the highest grossing animated movie ever possibly is starring Jennifer Saunders. She's funny, but her character isn't.
So if you thought the first one was the greatest movie of all time, or you're a fan of sappy romantic movies, go see this one. If you thought the first one was just OK, don't even bother. It's really sad when I enjoyed Van Helsing more than this movie.