Good storytelling, lousy story

Rating: 4/10 (20 May 2001)

Any movie that needed to have it's own brand of Baskin Robbins ice cream is not likely to be selling itself on it's own merits. Despite all the time and money that was spent on Shrek, it fell far short of the accomplishment it could have been.
In its technical aspects Shrek excelled. The animation is fluid and precise. Shrek's human characters are animated well enough to make Toy Story look primitive. The donkey is particularly impressive. Rarely has an animated creature been so emotionally expressive with it's entire body. The movie obviously had good storyboarding. Each scene portrays the subjects with skill and style. Shrek's fairytale world is a visual delight. From the impressive sunsets to the lively forest, and from the dazzling stained glass windows of Farquaad's fortress to the swirling lava and foreboding decay of the dragon's castle, Shrek's colorful environment is fascinating to watch.
In contrast, the script is largely a disappointment. To be sure, Shrek does have its funny moments. There is a notably amusing and well deserved mockery of Disneyland as Shrek and his donkey companion enter Farquaad's town. However, the majority of the jokes fail miserably. Shrek has a decidedly unamusing preoccupation with fart jokes. Much of the humor of the movie seems to rest on the curious assumption that potty talk and other crudeness are inherently funny.
All four of the main characters display startling inconsistency. Shrek is ferociously fearless in tackling a pitchfork-wielding mob, a fire-breathing dragon and small army of armor-clad knights. However, in the midst of this he also quickly gives in to Farquaad's requests and is easily intimidated by an angry Princess Fiona. The Princess wavers between a helpless damsel being carried around by Shrek, and karate trained superwoman who can single-handedly defeat a band of thieves. The dragon repeatedly switches between trying to kill the main characters and being friendly to them with little or no explanation. The donkey shows, perhaps, the most consistency with his unceasing, mindless chatter. Eddie Murphy, as the donkey, does an excellent job of being as annoying as possible. Mike Meyers brings a measure of balance to the Shrek character despite Meyers's well done, but out of place, Scottish accent.

At several points the dialog breaks down into pure tackiness. The relationship tension between Shrek and Fiona, spawned from a hackneyed misunderstanding, is fit only for a bad soap opera. Much of the dialog has a childish feel despite the PG-13 rating that was earned by the occasional use of obscenities. The discussions among the characters become, at times, blatantly preachy. The banal presentation of such moral lessons as "don't judge by appearances" is reminiscent of didactic Saturday morning cartoons.
The plot is plain and predictable, but suffers the most from its tendency to gloss over poorly explained points. Add to the triteness of the plot top 40 tunes to accompany it, WWF style combat, and a Matrix reference and Shrek can be seen for what it really is: just another conglomeration of pop-culture entertainment ideas. While pretending to be a new and different perspective on fairy tales, Shrek has nothing to offer but overdone, worn-out themes.