Slightly corny but ultimately enjoyable

Rating: 8/10 (9 October 2008)

After receiving a note from her parents, Fiona, Shrek and Donkey head on a journey to Far Far Away where Shrek comes under the wrath of the King.
Shrek 2 was one of the most anticipated and well received animated sequels in recent years and broke many records, and is easy to see why with fun characters, daft humour and a very strong likability factor.
After winning an Oscar for the first, a sequel was always inevitable and though not as good as the first, this comedy still packs plenty of jokes in with the same and more lovable characters.
Myers, Murphy, Diaz all return to their respective roles, and Antonio Banderas comes in for the very cool Puss in Boots. John Cleese as the King, Julie Andrews as the Queen and the star of the show is Jennifer Saunders as the wicked and sophisticated fairy god mother and despite the evilness of her character; you just have to love her. She is easily the funniest ever evil animated female and is worth watching just for her.
Like the first, this film is very character driven with Shrek struggling to Fiona's lifestyle, and Fiona having trouble with her new husband and her family. By focusing upon emotions, the film engages the audience into its narrative and makes us associate with the characters and makes it realistic, despite a few clichés along the way.
There is slightly more humour with this film, and once again all the fairytale creatures get parodied, along with some intertextuality from major Hollywood films including Lord of the Rings, Mission Impossible, Spider-man and Alien, all very accurate and humorous if you know what's going on.
The plot is consistent in its approach to the occurring events and the direction helps achieve the humour and emotion. However what lets this sequel down is the writing. All the way through, the film runs on a few clichés, feeling very dull and unoriginal. The essence of predictability is always hanging around and can be very disappointing, especially with the just in time scenarios. Nevertheless the film is targeted towards a younger audience and with the easy to understand basics it does so in a healthy and respectable manner.
The purpose is to entertain, and though corny, Shrek 2 achieves it's main objective.