Very Disappointing - 5/10

Rating: 4/10 (19 July 2004)

This film looked gorgeous, but that could not make up for the lack of quality elsewhere: it was simply not funny. I enjoyed the original immensely, but watched this sequel in a cinema where the audience laughed only occasionally. It was embarrassing watching so many of the jokes fall flat - but with only one of the writers from the original still on board, it should not have come as a surprise.
Even the movie references were ignored by the audience because there was no humour attached to them - it seemed the filmmakers were just content to demonstrate their vast knowledge of good movies (see the trivia section), but instead showed their inability to make a corker of their own.
As with many sequels, Shrek 2 benefits from our familiarity with the characters: if this had been the first movie, I think that even 5/10 would have been generous.