"Shrek" isn't "Dreck"!

Rating: Null/10 (6 June 2001)

I was a little edgy about Dreamworks at first. I don't know why, maybe their corporate logo had something to do with it. Maybe their approach to being cute (a kid fishing from the moon) rather than majestic (like Disney, Fox, the WB or Universal) did it. Turkeys like "The Haunting" didn't help, either. Hell, that same movie cost over $90 million to make a house that wasn't scary, only to lose to Artisan's "Blair Witch Project", which cost under a million (and it wasn't scary, either...still happy I paid for "The Iron Giant").
After seeing "The Road to El Dorado", I guess my opinion about Dreamworks swayed a little. Maybe the music by Elton John and Tim Rice, doing music together for the first time since "The Lion King" in 1994 helped.

Anyway, I did like "Shrek". It's not trying to be a formulaic "prince and princess fall in love and get married" movie. As the trailers state: "the prince isn't charming, the beauty isn't sleeping, and the hero is an ogre".

The various jabs at many fairy tales and nursery rhymes are very funny. And some stories, if they're not actually 'fairy tales'. There were so many, it's tough to keep count. Look for spoofs of Snow White, Peter Pan, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, the Gingerbread Man, Robin Hood, etc. And it still has enough time to parody "The Matrix."
It also teaches a moral about prejudice. We all feel for Shrek, when he tells Donkey *slight spoiler* that no one thinks well of him because he's an ogre, which everyone tends to think are big, stupid ugly monsters. I guess not all ogres are evil beasts...
I suppose some mild profanity and a scene were we see Donkey leak out a fire gave this movie it's PG rating. Also, there seems to be a new 'surefire laughs' gross-out gag. In the mid-'90s, it was lighting farts on fire. Today, (2001) it's putting out fires with one's urine. I wonder what other body function we can use on fires in the future...um...yuck. Try not to think about that.
So, go see Shrek. In the meantime, 'I have to save my ass.'