“Shrek 2”

Movie companies who are making a comedy should hire Laurel to do their pre-release audience testing. She is not usually a laugh-out-loud woman, so when she chortles exuberantly while watching a movie, that’s a good sign this is a comedic hit.

"Shrek 2” is one of just a few films in my recent memory that have earned the Laurel Laughed! Stamp of Approval. Another was “South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut.” But Shrek 2 has to get the smiling nod over South Park because using farting jokes to induce a laugh is like using chocolate cake to get someone to eat: it’s just too easy.

Shrek 2 manages to be hilarious while remaining virtually 100% family friendly. It also is inspiring for those of us (which includes almost everyone) who root for good-hearted green ogres to triumph over mean-spirited white royalty and Fairy Godmothers who don’t play fair.

Our favorite character was, of course, Puss-in-Boots. This dashing swashbuckler feline, gloriously voiced by Antonio Banderas, steals every scene he appears in.

When Puss-in-Boots has to interrupt his attempt to waylay Shrek, Princess Fiona, and Donkey because of a massive fur ball hacking attack, this was the first of many laugh-out-loud moments for us. Of course, given Laurel’s canine predilections, getting a laugh from her by bringing a sinister cat to its knees (literally) is to be expected.

Many other parts of the film are funny because they are so creatively unexpected. As Ebert observes in his review, Shrek 2 often goes against convention. In most tales of this sort you don’t get to see what happens after the brave hero rescues the damsel in distress from her tower dungeon.

But here, after Shrek returns home and carries Princess Fiona over the threshold of his cabin in the swamp, almost right away she starts nagging him to make the long trip to the kingdom of Far Far Away and visit her parents. I liked how Shrek put his ogre foot down in a macho fashion, telling Fiona “No way! We’re not going. This is not a good idea.”

Then the next scene shows him loading up the wagon as the three blind mice turn up to house sit while he’s in Far Far Away. You need to think, while you’re rescuing a princess, “Am I eventually going to need to be rescued from her?”

If you watch Shrek 2 on DVD, be sure to watch all of the closing credits. Or at least fast forward through them until you come to the “Far Far Away Idol” contest. The main characters sing songs suited to their personalities, and you get to interactively vote for the winner. There we were after midnight, past our 55 and 56 year old bedtimes, me repeatedly “rewinding” (in DVD fashion) this extra feature so we could vote for different characters and see what happens.

I felt like a kid again. Which is precisely the reason I liked Shrek 2 so much. And why I’ve got “South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut” on my list of movies to look for at the video store.

Flaming farts! I’ve already got a smile on my eight year old face.

Comments

[Carol Ann]

Hopefully you also saw Shrek I, which tells you why Fiona looks like Shrek? I agree that Puss n Boots was great!