Smarmy medieval animated comedy built around modern references...

Rating: 4/10 (24 January 2007)

Cynical, smart-ass computer-animated comedy from DreamWorks begins with green medieval ogre Shrek reading a fairy tale in an outhouse... Later, after reluctantly falling for a princess who suffers under a curse, he attempts to be a local hero by returning the girl to her father and regaining his swamp land. Gross-out humor (for the 12-&-under crowd) permeates this in-jokey venture, which is further undermined by misplaced rock songs on the soundtrack and too-familiar star-voices for the characters (mostly sounding annoying and hammy). For many adults, the obvious references, easy-target humor and to-the-rafters slapstick seemed to suffice, yet the picture is awfully crude. Based on the book by William Steig, it was of course hugely popular at the box-office and spawned two sequels (so far). ** from ****