Shrek 2001
Certainly not what I was expecting. Parts of the movie were very dark (the singing bird/fried egg scene). Overall I found it to be a very mixed movie with some very typical aspects (Lithgow’s villain was trite, an unimaginative extension of his 3rd Rock character) and some refreshingly different aspects (the non-Disney ending). I won’t go into too much detail since I don’t want to ruin anything for someone who hasn’t seen it.
Eddie Murphy’s part as the sidekick is both charming and annoying. And then sometimes the donkey became this almost Uncle Remus caricature. Yuck. Murphy is very limited in what he can do and he has played this part too many times.
There are some good lines in it, but they are throwing so much out there that it would be hard not to hit with a few jokes. I liked the bit of dialog about the layered onion.
I wish that they had played around with some of the old fairy tales more. There was a gold mine there and they really only scratched the surface. Instead they went for burping and farting jokes too often.
I’ll give it a B- because I don’t think it really delivered the zing that it could have and will still shoot over the heads of most children in the audience.
Owned on: Blu-ray, Digital