The Best Animated Feature in a year of slim animated pickings.(Contains a major spoiler)

Rating: 7/10 (25 March 2002)

If that sounds like a left-handed compliment, rest assured that it is.
Shrek is not a terrible movie, it's not even all that bad, really. In fact, I just watched it again today. The problem is that Shrek follows the exact same schmaltzy formula of the Disney features that it is purported to bunk. I don't know whether Princess Fiona was born an ogre or not, but it seems to me that in either case, it's a copy of The Little Mermaid. The princess has to change to be like and please her true love. What kind of lesson is that?
My biggest complaint, though, is the near-complete failure on the part of the directors to choose decent music that will be enjoyable even two years from now. I hated Smash Mouth's gimmicky "All-Stars" the first time I heard it, and I still hate it. The rest of the songs are boring and unemotional, with the exception of the song with the line "Broken Halleluiah." That is the only song, in my opinion, that can't be replaced because it plays an integral part in the emotions of the scene. It is a very sad, sincere song, even if the movie around it doesn't always live up to that sincerity.