Shrekweblog| writing| reviews| flickr| Mothcast |
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| Shrek annoyed me. Not the ogre himself, he was fine - although Mike Myers made him sound slightly too much like a big green Billy Connolly - but the movie. Because, while it was pretty good, it should have been much, much better. That is, it should have been as good as we were told it was. I'm sorry, but I didn't love it. I laughed a lot, yes. Mostly at Eddie Murphy's Donkey, who without doubt stole every single scene he was in. And he was in most scenes. There were lots of neat little ideas, but the whole was much less than the sum of its parts. Perhaps it's the lack of a solid villain. Lord Farquaad had great potential as a force for Order in the necessarily Chaotic fairy tale world Shrek inhabits, but his on-screen villainy amounts to very little. I felt that there should have been more of his quest to rid his Perfect Kingdom of the irrational fairy tale creatures he was beset with. Simply rounding them up and dumping them in a swamp hardly makes him Darth Vader. Therefore, we're faced with a situation where we're rooting for the good guys, but we're not sure why. The plot is thin enough to not bother with here, and, besides, we're hardly there for the plot, are we? No, we wanna see the shiny graphics and hear the funny jokes. Yes, the graphics are gorgeous. However, they suffer from a lack of visual flair, the same flair that characterised Toy Story, say. There is not a moment during this movie that will prompt "oohs" or, indeed "aaahs" from the audience. This is a failing it shares with Dreamworks Animation's other great CGI opus, the disappointing Antz. And, yes, the jokes are funny. But... My main problem with Shrek is that there was a divide. It's become fairly standard these days to make so-called "Kids Movies" (which, it seems, pretty much categorises every film I see these days) accessible to grown-ups, ie. the odd joke for the parents is slipped in to the script to stop them slipping in to a coma. For the aforementioned Toy Story, this worked beautifully, because the jokes for adults were funny to kids as well, making it a joy to watch no matter what age you are. With Shrek, it feels like the scriptwriters went through saying "This joke is for grown-ups. This joke is for children. This joke is for.." and so on. The jokes aimed at the kids are too peurile for even the most childish adult (ooh, he bathes in mud! Look, look! He showers with mud! How funny is that!? Er...) and the jokes aimed at the adults will sail right over the kids' heads without raising a titter ("Do you think he's compensating for something?" asks Shrek upon seeing Farquaad's enormous castle. I can't imagine many kids being students of Freudian psychoanalysis. Well, not until at least the age of 12..) This sort of divide is evident throughout and makes Shrek an uneven movie to watch. Add to that a blink-and-you'll-miss-it conclusion that wraps the plot up with a handy deus-ex-machina and you'll come out of the cinema feeling unsatisfied, even with the fabulous finale rendition of I'm a Believer still rattling around your brain. Call me a grumpy bastard, but I just thought I was going to get more. Maybe I've been spoiled, though. It wasn't a bad movie. It just wasn't a great one. |
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