Pretty good movie for youngsters

Rating: 6/10 (5 June 2001)

Shrek ain't my normal cuppa tea, but it was strongly recommended by a respected colleague. So off I went to a local Odeon to check out this tale of yore.
This was at 5 on a Sunday, but there were only about 50 spectators, all adults with young children, except for your fearless reviewer. Makes you think that reports of problems in the movie display industry are not exaggerated.
If memory serves me right, Shrek is close to Schrech, the German word for terror or fright. This would hopefully refer to the ogre, not the movie itself.
Anyway, it took a few minutes for me to get my head around the fact that I was about to spend almost an hour and a half watching some kinda cartoon, several decades since the last time.
Having done that, I was soon enjoying the antics of Eddie Murphy. Incongruous though it seems, his 1990s street slang was a super fit for the ancient times. But Mike Myers was all over the place.
Those who recall his excellent work in SNL still affectionately laugh at his language renditions in the Scottish retail store. But here he alternated between a little of the Highlands, and more of his birthplace in a suburb of Toronto.
There were two flatulence jokes within seconds at one point. Guess that was a device to raise the attention levels of the nine-year-old boys. But this audience of children was strangely silent throughout most of the movie.
There were some delightful notes of incongruity. Perhaps the best was that of the appearance of a French-accented Robin Hood. Weird stuff!

The fundamental point of the story --- not to judge by appearances alone --- was well made. And the ending was spectacularly done. Quite a surprise to me also, in that the fairy tale ending was not there.
However, along with all of this mature understanding for diversity was a curious inconsistency. We may not have liked Lord Farquaad, but was it appropriate to fill the movie with jokes about his height and size? Surely our compassion should extend to the vertically challenged as well as the plain ugly?
Anyway, I give Shrek a 6. By the way, the sunset outside the theatre was truly spectacular. A definite 10!!!