SHREK 2: We are Definitely Not in the Swamp Anymore

Shrek 2 (2004) – Directed by Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury, and Conrad Vernon – Starring Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Antonio Banderas, Julie Andrews, John Cleese, Rupert Everett, Jennifer Saunders, and Tom Waits.

SHREK 2 is a solid animated feature, artfully blending a good story, good characters, and excellent visuals. It’s funny, but with enough drama in the foundation to give the story adequate weight. The interplay between the characters is top-notch, and the addition of Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) helps to add a new dimension to the Shrek/Donkey (Mike Myers/Eddie Murphy) dynamic. At it’s core, SHREK 2 is an ode to acceptance, communication, and the dangers of preferring appearance over action. There’s a solid story here, but there are some frustrating parts of the film – specifically, Shrek’s continued self-pity and a few too many pop culture references.

SHREK 2 is a very good movie, but it’s also the kind of movie that becomes less enjoyable over the years due to the scattered nature of all the pop culture references. The movie is much better when focusing on the story and less successful when it’s reveling in Joan Rivers cameos, spoofs of Cops, plugging Starbucks (with a Farbucks parody) or jamming in as many pop songs as possible. Now, those features are a big part of what makes the SHREK franchise so successful, but many of those references become less successful with repeated viewings.

Shrek and Fiona (Cameron Diaz) leave the swamp to visit Fiona’s parents in Far Far Away. Shrek doesn’t want to go because he’s a home body and suffers from a distinct case of giving a crap about what other people think. It is a little frustrating at how far they go to sell Shrek’s poor attitude, and more than a little frustrating how far they go to sell Donkey as annoying. What saves SHREK 2 is that they film does move through the story at breakneck speed – we never spend too long in any of the film’s set pieces. As soon as Shrek’s attitude becomes unbearable, the film hits the road. As soon as Donkey’s endless, “Are we there, yet?” questions lose all humor, we arrive at Far Far Away, which plays Disneyland to the first SHREK’s Disney World setting.

Fiona’s parents, the King and Queen (John Cleese and Julie Andrews) did not know of the events of the first SHREK movie, and they are of differing minds of what’s happened and their daughter’s decision to marry an ogre. The Queen is relatively cool with it, but the King is not. Later in the film, we learn that Harold was the Frog Prince back in the day, and is thus touchy about appearances, but at first he just comes off as a jerk by judging Shrek without getting to know him.

The King’s obsession with appearances is matched by Shrek’s, and thus all of the movie’s following drama is set in motion. If Shrek was cool with the way he looked, or didn’t have such a self-defeating attitude, he wouldn’t have been swayed by reading Fiona’s diary.

From when she was a kid.

But because he is, he sees all of her “Fiona Charming” drawings and assumes that the younger Fiona still speaks for the grown-up Fiona. Given’s Shrek’s personality it does make a bit of narrative sense for this to happen, but it also means that, deep down, Shrek remains unmoved by the events of the first film. Again, almost all of the problems in SHREK 2 would not be problems in characters just talked to one another. Note that I don’t mean complete strangers talking to one another, either, but husband and wife, parent and child, and in-laws. Barring that, it would have been nice to see the filmmakers do something with the fact that Fiona is changed – and not just physically. All it would take is a few lines from the King and Queen about how their daughter has matured, for instance, to give the film a little more weight.

This is a small complaint, though, because the humor in SHREK 2 goes a long way to making this film as enjoyable as it is.

Key to the humor is the addition of Puss in Boots. Initially, Puss is hired by the King to kill Shrek, but then becomes an ally of the guy he will spend the rest of the film referring to as, “Boss.” The interplay between Puss and Donkey is the comedic highlight of the film as they fight for Shrek’s affections and revel in giving each other subtle digs, largely behind Shrek’s back.

The trio steal a “Happily Ever After” potion from the Fairy Godmother (Jennifer Saunders). Shrek and Donkey both take the potion (after Puss tricks Donkey into being the “test animal” instead of him) and in the morning are transformed into a handsome man and his glorious white steed. Fiona gets transformed, too, and thus we get a drama of identities where Fiona is tricked into thinking Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) is Shrek, though she never quite believes it.

There’s a bunch of convoluted back and forth between the King, the Fairy Godmother, Charming, and Fiona, while Shrek wallows in self pity about how Fiona is better without him and blah blah blah. Luckily, we’ve got Donkey to set him straight, but then they’re arrested, and the Cops spoof starts and all the fairy tale creatures who are house-sitting Shrek’s place back in the swamp.

Here’s the thing about Pinocchio, the Three Blind Mice, the Gingerbread Man, the Three Little Pigs, and the Big Bad Wolf – they’re not in the film as much as I remember. In my head, they’re all over SHREK 2, but when I rewatched it last night, they’re really not in it very much. Every time they are in the film, however, it’s memorable.

If they’re dead set against making more SHREK movies, why can’t we get a Fairy Tale movie? I’d pay ten bucks just to listen to the Gingerbread Man talk for 90 minutes.

SHREK 2 is a really good, really enjoyable movie. There are some issues with the film, but it moves so fast and causes so much laughter that I’m willing to let that slide. If it comes down to an either/or, I’ll always take the original over the parody, and while SHREK 2 does tell it’s own story, it also succeeds largely because of all the parodies it offers up.

SHREK: Not My Gumdrop Buttons!

Shrek (2001) – Directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson – Starring Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, John Lithgow, Vincent Cassel, Conrad Vernon, and Frank Welker.

SHREK is a wonderfully funny film, full of heart and sly jokes.

While it is certainly a kid’s movie, there’s plenty of meatier material here for adults. One of the key storytelling techniques in SHREK is the disconnect between what people say they want and what they actually want. The film is largely about Shrek (Mike Myers) and Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz) coming to grips with admitting what they really want and having the strength to open their hearts to let the outside world in.

For Shrek, a giant ogre who tells everyone who will listen that he just wants to be left alone, the need to open his heart is to allow what he actually wants: friends, companionship, and to be part of a community. He doesn’t even realize this at the start of the movie, but when the local villagers track him down in his home in the swamp, he meets them with a smile on his face (if not open arms). Shrek enjoys the confrontation, and so even though he’ll tell anyone who listens that he wants to be left alone, he has some fun with the attacking villagers.

We can say the same for his relationship with Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Fiona. The ogre is constantly (and legitimately) annoyed by Donkey’s constantly loud nature, but he typically only rejects Donkey when he’s been emotionally hurt. Being hurt himself, he seeks to take it out on others in order to protect himself from more emotional scarring.

In contrast, Fiona needs to open her heart in order to alter what she really wants. Obsessed with being inside a fairy tale, Fiona is a captive of a dragon and yearns for her handsome Prince Charming to come and rescue her, so she can fall in love, get kissed, break her curse, and live happily ever after. When Shrek arrives and only succeeds in meeting her fantasy of rescue, Fiona is like a spoiled little child complaining because after coming out of surgery, the nurse brought her Neapolitan ice cream and not getting enough chocolate. Fiona has been cursed to turn into an ogre from sundown to sun-up, and needs to be kissed by her true love to break the spell. Her conception of “true love” is entirely physical and story-based, but over the course of the film she opens up to the idea of being in love with Shrek, who turns out to be a pretty nice guy when he forgets he wants to be alone.

In between them is Donkey, who is much more vocal about what he wants, even though he does his best to hide the emotional scars. Like Shrek, Donkey is afraid to get hurt, but his approach to preventing that it to have an exaggerated persona rather than a sullen one. Where Shrek wants to be left alone, Donkey seeks to attach himself to someone else. It’s Donkey who serves the narrative’s need to get Shrek and Fiona to explain themselves for the audience, and Donkey who keeps the humor coming even when the other two get mopey or angry.

All three characters are solidly conceived and executed, and it’s because of them (and John Lithgow’s Lord Farquaad) that make SHREK enjoyable and re-watchable. What makes SHREK something special, though, is the way it overtly pokes fun at animated fairy tales (which is to say, the House of Mouse), yet covertly affirms many of those fairy tale conventions.

Shrek, for instance, claims to hate singing, yet the movie not only gets a whole lotta laughs from Donkey singing and humming, but ends with a big celebration in which Donkey leads a sing-along to Smash Mouth’s rendition of “I’m a Believer.” SHREK pokes all sorts of fun at the fairy tale characters it includes, but again, it ends up laughing with them instead of at them. It’s almost like this entire film is watching a kid bag on Walt Disney movies even though he secretly loves them, and can only truly admit he loves them when he starts dating a girl who likes them, too. The final scene, in which Shrek’s kiss breaks the spell and Fiona is transformed … into an ogre … is a nice twist in terms of physical appearance, but also a total reification of the traditional fairy tale. The transformation itself is screaming out for you to compare it to Beauty and the Beast, too.

The best scene in SHREK is between the Gingerbread Man and Lord Farquaad. The would-be king (his desire to be king is why he has Shrek rescue Fiona for him; if he can marry a princess then he can become king) is torturing Gingerbread in order to discover the location of missing fairy tale creatures. Farquaad wants all of them out of his kingdom and has driven most of them into Shrek’s swamp. G-Man isn’t talking, but then Farquaad threatens to pull off the cookie’s gumdrop buttons. “No! Not the buttons!” the Gingerbread Man wails helplessly. “Not my gumdrop buttons!”

From a structural standpoint, the movie SHREK reminds me of most is Jan de Bont’s Speed, which has an action sequence before and after the main bus sequence. Similarly, I thought SHREK was going to be about rescuing the princess, but the quest to rescue Fiona is not the point of the movie, but rather prelude to the return home.

SHREK was the film that put DreamWorks animation on the map and over a decade later it’s impressive how fresh and fun it feels. I’m lukewarm on the DreamWorks catalog, but I really love SHREK.

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And hey, if you like all ages stories, check out my kid’s novel ADVENTURES OF THE FIVE: THE COMING OF FROST. Available now in both paperback and for the Kindle.