I love 'SHREK'! (1 Viewer)

[Inspector Hammer!]

WOW! I just watched this film a couple of nights ago and was truly blown away at this amazingly charming, and often very funny film!
Everyone involved with this production should take a bow, they created a masterpiece with 'Shrek', both the film, AND the man, er um, Ogre, himself. He's a magnificent creation made extremly lovable by both the animators and the voice talent of Mike Myers, using the same exact voice he used for the father charactor in another film of his 'So I Married an Axe Murderer'. It doesn't end their, Eddie Murphy really shines as a Donkey who accepts Shrek without question, and can't seem to keep a tune to himself. Cameron Diaz as the by-the-book princess who's aggravation at Shrek's refusal to play by the fairy tale rules, is quite funny.
But on a laughscale of 1 to 10, John Lithgow's Lord Farquaad scores about an 11! I've never seen a funnier diminutive little runt since Dark Helmet!
All of these great charactors are surrounded by the most beautiful and striking fairy tale land not seen since Dorothy went off to see the wizard! Just an amazing feat of computer graphics creates a world so rich, soft, and dreamlike that it makes one long to be there with them on their adventures.
I could go on, but you've probably heard it all before, and i'm sorry, but this film just got me jazzed, I LOVED SHREK!
To those who havn't seen it yet, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

 

[BertFalasco]

I am going to watch it probobly tomorrow because I am going to watch GoodFellas right now with my brother. I have tons of unopened DVDs from my birthday.
-Bert

 

[Morgan Jolley]

We all know how good it looked, but you didn't say anything about the story.

I, for one, did not like Shrek. It was funny, and I might watch it again, but as a film, I thought it failed. The story was lacking and most of the scenes in the film felt like skits rather than plot points. Everything seemed haphazardly strung together in order to make it more of a funny film than an actual film.

Though Eddie Murphy did make it hilarious at some parts. He can do good voiceovers, plus Donkey's big smile was funny.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Morgan, I couldn't disagree more with your post. How can anyone have a problem with a film this entertaining? It's one of the best things to come out of Hollywood in awhile.
And I did't mention the story because I didn't want to spoil the fun for those who havn't seen it yet. But if you must know, I liked the story alot, I mean come on, it's in the best tradition of storybook tales that were read to me growing up, except for the "ass" parts.

 

[Patrick McCart]

This is my favorite film of 2001 and I doubt it'll change.

The animation is wonderful...it uses realistic textures to make cartoony characters which actually makes the film funnier.

It's a little bit uneven, but it has one great moment after another. I could best compare this movie to Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

There is a lot of subtle humor (which I love) that really makes it an enjoyable movie. The storybook opening (I seriously thought it would be a straight fairy tale film at first) was a great jab at the cheesy book openings of many films (Who wants to read a book during a movie?)

Many sequences were just delightful because of the absurdity. The "Monseuir Hood" scene completely took me by surprise. In that one sequence, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Matrix, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Robin Hood: Men In Tights, Busby Berkley musicals, West Side Story, and Pepe Le Pew were all spoofed! The various jabs at Disney were funny, too. (Especially the "Bighead Farquaad" guy who gets scared by Shrek)

The movie is even better after hearing the commentary on the DVD. The fact that almost all the non-star characters were voiced by animators at PDI is facinating.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

The thing is that a lot of the stuff Shrek made fun of had already been made fun of, so its not like it was totally original. Having seen the Matrix be made fun of time and time again gets old, as do some other things...

Even so, the plot felt to be lacking. Yes, it was entertaining, but it didn't feel very coherent. I would have liked for smoother transitions from scene to scene. Maybe making it longer would have made it seem more like a real film instead of a bunch of little spoofs.

One thing that bugged me was the gingerbread man scene. It was funny as hell, but since it had no place in the film at all (it had no meaning for anything other than being funny) it felt out of place. Had the gingerbread man accidentally leaked info or something, then it would have made sense, but as it is, it had no effect on the story or plot.

Yeah, it was funny, but it was not well done in many ways. I'm happy with it and still think its funny, but I would have preferred that they edited in some extra footage to make it feel less choppy and added stuff so instead of one or two really funny scenes, there were one or two realy funny scenes and a bunch of somewhat funny scenes in between.

Also, the visual quality of the film and the animation was not a big deal for me. I think Toy Story pretty much got animation and fluidity down pat, and Final Fantasy went that extra mile for details and realism, so Shrek didn't bring anything new to the table.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Patrick, I too listened to the commentary track and agree that it made the film even better and more enjoyable the second time around. Listening to them talk about the film, it's clear that they put alot of love into this movie, and every bit of it shows on screen.

 

[Patrick Sun]

The thing that works for "Shrek" is that this film simply engages the audience on both the kid level and the adult level. It's light, fun, and it has heart. The character development is real and nary makes a mis-step. It's fun to re-visit Shrek and Donkey on subsequent viewings. Donkey always cracks me up.

OTOH, a convoluted film like Final Fantasy does very little to truly engage the audience on an accessible level that'll have the audience coming back for more. Good storytelling is good storytelling, and Final Fantasy failed in that respect, while Shrek excelled, it's as simple as that.

 

[Steve Christou]

One of my favorite films of the year, much better than the big summer blockbusters, the voice actors were spot on, a funny script, music was great, an instant classic.

Only problem I had with it was Farquaad wasn't quite evil enough to merit being eaten by a dragon, he was only semi-evil, and I actually quite liked the little bastard, John Lithgow voiced him perfectly.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Someone said once about how they never explained why Farquuad kicked all the fairy tals out of his kingdom...

FF took place in a very different world than Shrek, which is why the characters were very different for each film. I'm not getting into it here, though.

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

I love 'SHREK'!

Welcome to the club, John.
~Edwin

 

[Dave_P.]

My fave movie of the year.

 

[Brian Harnish]

Someone said once about how they never explained why Farquuad kicked all the fairy tals out of his kingdom...

And, BTW, I loved Shrek. Hilarious movie!

 

[Neil Joseph]

Agreed (with original post). It was nice to see a not so typical animated movie. Disney has pumped out a couple too like The Emperor's New Groove for instance.