Shrek Maybe Ugly But Here He Sparkles with Charm and Irreverence!

Rating: 9/10 (10 February 2016)

Shrek (Mike Myers) is a green, obnoxious ogre who bathes (and gargles) in mud, is notoriously flatulent and makes a candle out of his earwax. He knows perfectly well he's not welcome in polite society and just wants is to be left alone in his swamp. But Shrek has a couple of problems. One is a stubborn, trash-talking donkey (Eddie Murphy) who has latched onto him and the other is the evil Lord Farquaad (John Lithgow, subtly underplaying), who has dumped all the disenfranchised fairytale creatures of the land in Shrek's backyard. So the Seven Dwarfs hauling a dead Snow White around in her glass casket, the Three Bears, Pinocchio, the Big Bad Wolf and a horde of other beloved Disney characters turn up in the swamp of our misanthropic ogre and spoil his view with their squalid refugee camp. Shrek cuts a deal with the nasty Lord to get his solitude back: Rescue Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz, surprisingly amazing) from the castle guarded by a fire-breathing dragon and his land will be cleared of the squatters. So the reluctant ogre goes on his quest, with the yammering Donkey at his side. They encounter the dragon, which has a soft spot for donkeys, and rescue Fiona so that she can marry Farquaad. Things then get complicated, and quite adorable, as Shrek finds a soft spot for the lady. But the Princess does not only have real chemistry with the ogre, but also a dark secret of her own.
Some wise guys sure had a blast making Shrek. That's certain. You can feel the snap, crackle and the pop of creation here as talented animators take a classic story and twist it to make fun of both fairy tales and the Disney behemoth. No one has attempted to take the starch out of these beloved icons, never with such wicked glee. "Though she lives with seven men, she's not easy!" barks Shrek about Snow White while Cinderella is called "a mentally abused shut-in" – with riotous irreverence, they lampoon every once-sacred characteristic of the nursery kingdom. Whether any of this is actionable is for the courts to decide. But in the court of public opinion, it's hilarious! You can almost picture the makers giggling as they come up with non-stop wisecracks, stopping only to groove on the computer images they've made. From the lush countryside that Shrek roams through, to the amazing, textured faces on each of its characters, Shrek is a stunning achievement. The animation is used subtly and intelligently, with great humor, never pushing things further than the technology will allow. Its musical scenes are unusually powerful, its wit remarkably vicious, its central love story genuinely touching.
What gives Shrek its special artistic distinction is its witty and knowingly sassy dialogue, delivered by vocally charismatic performers. Shrek may be a mean, green halitosis machine, but it doesn't take long to love him, warts and all, thanks to Mike Myers who reprises his Scottish accent to great comic effect. Eddie Murphy steals every scene he's in with equal parts bounce and warmth as the yakky Donkey and practically gallops off with the movie.
With improbable finesse, Shrek buffs up some of the oldest tropes of storytelling and then gives them a mischievous tilt, so that we appear to be watching a celebration of a genre and a sneaky subversion of it at the same time. It is an adorable, infectious work of true sophistication!