Promising cast and premise, but tamer than hoped for results

Rating: Null/10 (28 January 2002)

As a fan of both Mike Meyers and Cameron Diaz, this seemed to hold promise for me, even without their real images present. When I heard that it was a spoof of most all fairy tales, that seemed to have potential. And its description as an animated movie with appeal to grown-ups as well as children seemed to mean its promise was well realized. But on seeing it I found it to be at best a lukewarm realization of that promise. Part of the problem, I think,is how it explicitly makes reference to the fairy tales it draws upon, an awkward and corny device compared to the seamless spoofing I was expecting. In that regard it reminds me somewhat of WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT, a movie I thought would have been better without its explicit reference to its toon / human dichotomy. About a third of the way or so through, that movie started explicitly talking about toons vs. humans, and from there on it was only about half as funny and effective. Another problem with SHREK is that it fails to find a really rip-roaring climax to build up to. That makes it on the whole somewhat lame. Knowing these things in advance might have helped me expect less and hence find the movie more rewarding. It does have its moments. If you don't let your expectations soar too much, you might find there are considerably worse ways than this to spend an hour and a half or so. It might be a bit generous, but I'd rate this one three stars.