fast, funny and rather wicked in places

Rating: Null/10 (23 July 2004)

**SPOILERS**
I enjoyed the first movie, but it didn't blow me away. In fact, I watched it once on dvd a couple of years ago, and I've had no desire to see it again. That is, until I watched Shrek 2 last night. Now I'm wondering if the first one was, in fact, an awful lot better than I gave it credit for.
The genius of Shrek is that it combines parody with originality - pop culture references abound - from Farbucks, down to Puss's hat grabbing a la Indiana Jones. Yet it is still fresh and funny, with enough originality to keep it moving. Although some of the references were a little wasted on UK audiences - notably, the 'Knights' sequence. 'Cops' is not a big thing over here - I still really enjoyed it. The character of Puss really made this film for me - he combined elements of Zorro, Garfield and of course, El Mariachi. I particularly loved his cute kitty tactic to fool his opponents, and his low level mumbling in Spanish after his tumble off Donkey. And major kudos to the scriptwriters for getting my favourite old chestnut 'why the long face' gag in. And Jonathan Ross as the ugly sister was just classic.