Cute Story & Characters we can care about! 4.5 Stars

Rating: 5/10 (14 December 2002)

Like "Ice Age" I found myself watching and watching this new animated epic which quickly became a favorite of our family, children and adults alike. For some reason my wife thought this film might be too "something" for our youngest [age 3] to enjoy appropriately but like "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", the adult jokes go over the toddlers heads without so much as an expectant look. Part of what makes this film so good is the way it lampoons the usual cliches. Somehow in the process Shrek seems to avoid those overdone tired cliches by suspending our disbelief and redefining the genre in a way we may not have expected [for a change] and moving the power of the story up a notch, keeping pace with the soaring technologies and budgets now available to bring these epics to us, the audience. Also, like "Ice-Age", the plot really moves cleanly and concisely along and does not get caught up in song. Disney can make the songs work for the plot, but who else can have us humming "The Bare Necessities," 35 years after it was released in "The Jungle Book" by a singing Bear? In Shrek the ending is satisfying though it would be much like "Beauty and the Beast" ending with Belle becoming a beast too! Yes, you'll just have to see it and we'll all have to see the sequel coming out in 2004 and hopefully it will be a sequel to match Toy Story 2, minus the music of course.