Shrek 2: 5/10

Rating: 5/10 (29 May 2004)

Some movies completely stand on their own without the need of a sequel. Some don't need sequels, but do anyway, successfully, like the Toy Story movies. And some don't need sequels, but are made anyway. Shrek 2 is a combination of the first and third. Shrek was such an original, groundbreaking film, that any tweak could diminish how great the first one is. That tweak is Shrek 2, an obligatory cash-cow sequel that's so far off from everything that made the first so good that you can hardly believe it's based off the right movie.
Shrek (voice of Mike Myers), who seems to have lost most of his ogre-ish edge, is now married to a transformed Fiona (Cameron Diaz) and they're summoned to Fiona's parents' castle in the land of Far Far Away. They (John Cleese and Julie Andrews) don't accept either, and the king hires Puss-in-Boots (Antonio Banderas) to kill Shrek. Will Shrek survive? Will the king and queen look over Shrek and Fiona's differences? Will this movie try something new? I think we all know the answers to those questions.
The main problem of Shrek 2 is that everyone forgets that they have a first movie that they need to live up to. Although the animation, groundbreaking in the first, was the same (how could they really improve?), the plot and the characters lack in freshness. Usually in sequels, one or two new characters need to be introduced. Here we have a half-dozen or more. And, if Shrek hadn't made any changes for Fiona, why was he not mean and ogre-like? The whole theme of the movie was to be yourself-so why wasn't Shrek throughout the movie? And Donkey's (Eddie Murphy) character seemed to decrease in personality. Instead of being constantly annoying, like he's supposed to be, all he does is sing. The worst, though, is that the writers did not find some sort of stupid way to get Lord Farquuad, one of the funniest and most interesting characters from the original, back somehow.
The humor in Shrek 2 is misguided. The comedy is either crudity or satire. And the satire is just piled in heaps over us, but lots of it isn't that funny. When Shrek and Fiona first get to Far Far Away, it resembles a popular southern California city. There are parodies of stores in there, except they're all hard to see, and the ones I could see weren't funny. While crudity is often funny, here it's just people farting and belching for the most part. Instead of working parody around humor that comes naturally, the whole movie seems to be one long spoof of something or another. I guess the first one exhausted all of the fairy-tale references, so this one had to go to further depths for satire. Some were funny, but many weren't.
What the movie also lacked was any true sentimentality. Although the message is more obvious, there are very few, if any, tender moments in the film. It's weird to be saying this in an animated film, but there was no connection between Shrek and Fiona. Chemistry usually makes the movie, but I couldn't sense any here. Before I'm lynched, I'd like to say that there were quite a few parts that were funny. The best was probably the addition of the Ugly Stepsister, whose voice I shall keep secret. The dinner-table scene between Shrek and the king was also pretty funny, as were a few others.
Myers didn't seem to be trying here-using his lighter Fat Bastard accent again, but basically copying off what he did in the first. Diaz isn't that great of a voice actress, but it worked. Murphy didn't have as much to do, which really brought his character down. Banderas, whose Puss-in-Boots has been universally acclaimed, did a fine job with his Zorro-like character, but the character itself just wasn't funny. Ohhh, I get it! He's a cat, so he does cat-related things! Next you're going to be telling me Spider-Man shoots webs. All sarcasm aside, Cleese and Andrews did a good job, but I think the best was probably Rupert Everett as Prince Charming. The character and the voice were both great.
I had been looking forward to Shrek 2 since I first heard about it. What a disappointment.
My rating: 5/10
Rated PG for some crude humor, a brief substance reference and some suggestive content.