Shrek mixes feelings

Rating: 4/10 (23 May 2001)

I took my time and saw Shrek twice this past weekend. I made sure that I understood exactly what it was that I liked and disliked about the film before committing it to words. And here's where I stand.
Shrek is funny, no... not just funny. It is by far the funniest movie out this year. But it misses its target in a lot of different ways. Donkey, Shrek's comic sidekick voiced by Eddie Murphy brought me to laughter every time he did anything in the film. There wasn't a second of silence when Donkey spoke.
Then there is Lord Farquaad. This miserable little man, voiced by John Lithgow, is hilarious. His tyrade against the fairy tale creatures is unrelenting, and his evil demenour made me double over more than once.
And the fairy tale creatures as well, caused constant pain in my side. And I welcome that pain any day. From Pinochio to the Three Bears, they were all there, and I was glad to see them.
I'm sure by now you've noticed that I've left two very important characters out of this commentary. The first, is Fiona, voiced by Cameron Diaz. The second, is Shrek, voiced by Mike Myers (who is one of my very favorites).
These two characters suffered immensly throughout the feature. Shrek's humour was grotesque, and found only a few times through the course of the movie. As he approaches Lord Farquaad's castle, accompanied by his friend Donkey, Shrek comments, "do you think he's compensating for something?" The castle is, of course, huge and some might consider it narrow. This joke is one of those that are intended to fly over the head of the Jr. audience, and make adults and parents laugh. Well, I'm sure it flew over the kids heads... but when it got to the adults who were tall enough to catch it, it really wasn't funny. That was Myers problem throughout the whole movie, he wasn't funny.
Fiona, I grant, was not really intended to be funny. At least I hope not.
I think that the first main problem I had with the film was that the romance seemed to be the main point that they were trying to emphasize. I think they should have subdued it a little more. Maybe brought in more scenes with the funny "faerie-tale-things," for a few more laughs. Farquaad should have been in it more as well, I think.
Overall, it should have been a half hour longer, and not strived for the amount of substance that it did. The medium is great, but the presentation they were making was for comedy, and not for some dramatic romance... and then the script decided to screw the presentation over.
Shrek is good. I liked it. No, I loved it. But still, these reservations really stick with me even days after I've seen it. The combination of the "image isn't everything" romance and the comedy just didn't mix as well as I had hoped they would.
Regardless of that little tyrade, I'm still recommending "Shrek" to all my friends, and to you as well. Shrek is a good family movie. A good date movie. And a good movie to see with friends. It's mostly funny, and generally a good time.
Go see Shrek. But don't expect perfection. Just expect to laugh.