Respectable effort with a tough act to follow

Rating: 7/10 (23 April 2005)

Shrek 2 has as much humor, talent, and fun as the original classic, and almost as much heart. The film picks up where Shrek left off, with Fiona and Shrek celebrating their marriage, but they are immediately cast into a new adventure when summoned to the land of Far Far Away (a clever parody of Hollywood), to the court of Fiona's mother and father, for a surprise royal wedding ball. The only problem, as it turns out, is that Fiona has married the wrong guy - according to everybody but Shrek, Fiona, and their friends.
The plot, revolving around this central problem, is helped along by nearly constant allusions to virtually every fairy tale in the English canon, and satirical references to many recent popular films. Unsatisfied with the combination of romantic comedy, Hollywood satire and self-parody, the film-makers' also went all out with a clever original soundtrack, making Shrek 2 as much of a musical as anything else.
The voice talent is just as essential as it was in the first film, and there's more of it, with John Cleese and Antonio Banderas giving very memorable performances. And the animation is, unsurprisingly, lovely.
To their credit, Dreamworks kept the core talent in place, but created a somewhat different formula for this film. Even though I expect most fans of the first film to adore the second, I am not sure Shrek 2 is going to make the franchise any new fans. Though more clearly made for adult audiences than the original, Shrek 2 is still warm-hearted family fare. As much as I DO recommend this film, and as entertaining as I think it will be for just about anybody, I don't consider Shrek 2 to be quite the classic Shrek was. It's touching and goofy, to be sure, but it's much more of a Hollywood film than the original, and it doesn't quite reach the same levels. Nevertheless, it is one of the better sequels I have seen, and it was definitely worth both the price of admission and a third or fourth viewing of the DVD.