Reviews for Shrek

For years, Disney has been known for its animation, and most of the features are based on fairy tales, and could give the audience cavities because of its sugary-sweetness. Shrek blows all of them away. Its CGI is so superb, so real, that you will completely forget you are looking at something that was produced on a computer. Shrek is an ogre who lives as a recluse, because we learn that he knows he's ugly, and that the regular people will never accept him, only because of his appearence. So he lives on his own, and scares away any visitors, and he wouldn't want it any other way. But all that changes when he finds his home inhabited by fairy tale creatures, such as the Big Bad Wolf, the Three Blind Mice, fairies, elves, pixies, everything. He realizes they were banished there because the place they used to live in, Duloc, is ruled by Lord Farquaad, a dispicable tyrannt who is also three feet tall. He apparently wants all of the abnormal creatures out of his palace, and only lets normal people in, because he wants Duloc to remain "the perfect place". So Shrek goes there to settle things out, and is joined by Donkey, a fast-talking animal who is truly a smart-ass. Shrek and Farquaad make a deal: the Lord will grant Shrek back his home and bring back the fairy creatures to Duloc, IF he can rescue Princess Fiona from a fire-breathing dragon. And so he does, with huge action-packed scenes, one involving the dragon being a female and hitting on Donkey. When the rescue is over, the beautiful princess is disappointed when she realizes Shrek's identity. She wanted to be rescued by a handsome knight, and apparently wrote the book on princesses finding the right man. However, she eventually opens her heart to Shrek and realizes beauty is only skin deep. The group has many adventures on their way back to Duloc, one including Fiona meeting Robin Hood and his merry men. They do a song and dance number, which includes Robin leading the merry men in a Riverdance. Fiona is not impressed by them, and then whips their butts "Charlie's Angel's" style, with some moves from "The Matrix". This was the funniest scene in the movie. After that, Fiona is forced to marry Lord Farquaad, but Shrek and Donkey come jsut in time to stop her. Farquaad meets his demise, Shrek and Fiona marry, and everyone learns a lesson about predjudice. The movie was hilarious, charming, witty, and downright delightful. Princess Fiona is by far the most realistic looking one, and is absolutely gorgeous. Her face even looks sort of like Cameron Diaz's the actress who gives her her cheerful voice, with a hint of Valley-girl accent. All in all, Shrek is a must-see for anyone who loves animation, fairy-tales, or dreaming.

Shrek is undoubtedly the best film from Dreamworks I've seen so far. Witty, funny and well animated, along with excellent music makes this film a true classic.

The story is basically one big parody of the classic fairytale - Disney in particular - formula. Donkey, voiced by Eddie Murphy, who tags along with an ogre named Shrek is about to burst out singing each time when given the chance and Shrek gets highly annoyed by this: an obvious stab at Disney's classical singing and dancing characters. The film also makes fun of other well-known movies and phenomenons, such as Riverdance and the Matrix (which are some of the funniest parts in the movie!). The best thing about the movie is that it's not trying to suppress its humor down just to get a G-rating, it's aiming for all ages, including kids, teenagers and adults all the same. (Which can be well seen in the scene where Lord Farquaad is lying in his bed dreaming over Fiona - you have to see it to understand what I'm talking about!) The first half of the movie starts out a bit slow, but the last half is flat-out hilarious.

If Dreamworks will come up with more blockbusters like Shrek in the not-so-distant future, Disney will have more serious competition than ever before.

heh, Shrek. Everyone raves up and down about this flick, but i don't see why exactly. Is it because of the "flawless" animation?? Because of the humor?? Why?? The textbook perfect animation done by computers in my opinion isn't even in the same ballpark with the traditional cell animation. Hell, it isn't even on the same street. The story was bogusly thin, delving into the "Three's Company" well of misunderstanding gags. Aside from Shrek being ugly, and the running gag of Donkey annoying the blue hell out him, (and the audience), the first half hour is nothing special. The dragon scene was good, well done and action packed. After saving Fiona though, the plot gets so thin that anyone with any foresight whatever can see what is going to happen. The rest of the movie is padded with slightly humorous gags and in-jokes (the fact the Lord Faarquad is only 3 feet tall, ect.). The funniest part of the whole movie was at the beginning, when Faarquad is interrogating the Gingerbread Man. That almost had me rolling in the aisles. Shrek's voice reminds me of Fat Bastard's in "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" and supposedly they told Myers to cut down on the accent, because he got hard to understand. Other than that, it isn't terrably special, and is, at best, slightly above average.

Tired of those dumb Disney conventions? Why not try a movie that makes fun of them? If you're a Disney fan like me, then the thought of a movie that trashes all your favorite movies is perhaps a little off-putting. Indeed, when I heard that Shrek would be dotted by bathroom humor, I was a little doubtful of Shrek as a movie. It also didn't help that I'm not a big fan of Dreamworks. All their movies seemed to be absolute junk. Antz bored me. Prince of Egypt was nice but flawed. And The Road to El Dorado was nothing but garbage. Only Chicken Run was great, but even then, I didn't consider it to be in the same league as Disney's best. I wasn't expecting much from Shrek.

Nonetheless, I gave Shrek a chance and was mildly surprised. It didn't become one of my favorite movies. I wouldn't place it on the same level as The Emperor's New Groove or even Chicken Run, but overall, Shrek was a satisfying experience. Expecting nothing but tired jokes, I really wasn't looking for much of a story, but Shrek had that as well, and it was a good one.

Shrek tells the story of a grouchy but misunderstood ogre of the same name. Lord Farquaad has deemed that all fairy tale creatures be banished from his kingdom, so these fairy tale creatures hide out in Shrek's swamp. Shrek doesn't like this one bit, so he goes to see Lord Farquaad to have something done about it. What follows is a hilarious rollercoaster ride of parodies and situations.

The characters in Shrek are wonderful and funny. Shrek and Donkey have wonderful chemistry. Even the dragon, which I was expecting to be merely a plot point, was a wonderfully realized character. The villain was merely a source of humor, and the princess didn't have much of a personality, but these are minor quibbles.

Unfortunately, there are a few things I would like to pick at in Shrek. The humor for the most part is great. It starts out hard and fast and never lets up. But some of the humor I have to question why I even laughed at them in the first place. Fart jokes, for example, are very tired and don't remain funny for very long. And there's more than enough gross out jokes in this movie to turn me off. The exploding bird bit was especially disgusting. Pop culture jokes, also, are funny but often cheap-feeling. The Matrix parody is one fine example of a pop culture joke. While I can laugh at such humor, I prefer humor that's character driven. Also, while the story is wonderful, it sometimes gets confused. For all the humorous slamming of the Disney conventions, Shrek itself remains as conventional as the Disney movies it makes fun of. I could see the princess's curse coming from a mile away, and the ending felt like it came from Beauty and the Beast or from any other Disney fairy tale. The movie also talks about tolerance for the appearance of others, and yet it continues to make fun of the villain's small stature.

Now take a look at The Emperor's New Groove. Its message is not confused. Its story is far from conventional. And its humor is always outrageous and very character driven. While the movie is also somewhat of a parody, unlike Shrek it feels like something more. It is a charming and touching buddy tale. The Emperor's New Groove is everything Shrek wishes it could be. It makes you laugh without blowing up birds or grossing you out with the manners of an ogre. Yet why is it Shrek that everybody is raving about?