Shrek 2 (2004)

As good, or better than the orginal.

This was robbed of the Best Animated Feature by the overated "The Incredibles", and this is hilarious. You'll laugh from beginnning to end, I assure you. November 11, 2008

Don't go changing, to try and please me ...

Unfortunately, this is where the series took a really negative turn for the worse. The writers seemed to not be aware of what made the previous film in this series work and concentrated on all the wrong aspects. Bluntly, they tried hard to make all the humor adult friendly isntead of kid-friendly, removing most of the juvenile and childish aspects which really made Shrek endearing to a lot of us.

The original Shrek is easily the best in the series and for a variety of reasons that are pretty clear to most of the viewers. Unfortunately, the things that we can see wrong with the subsequent adventures seem not to be so apparent to the people behind the magic curtain. They seemed to focus on the slight things that might've been problematic in the first film and then magnify them to the Nth degree for the following episodes trying to propel the franchise on its faults.

The best thing about Shrek was that even a two-year old could sit and watch the movie in rapt attention without drifting away. Shrek has enough light-hearted childishness to propel it along, forcing the viewer to smile repeatedly. The fart jokes work, the tongue-in-cheek anachronistic references make sense and give the film a sense of backward-nostalgic appeal.

Again, very unfortunately, nothing seems to work and everything seems to be a cliché. Trying to make light of celebrity allure and the Hollywood life, the film deviates too far from the original concept and comes up as a boring, overwrought piece of nonsense, bloated with 'actual celebrities' that seem either miscast or just tired. If you've seen the film then you know exactly who I'm speaking of, there's more than enough to choose from.

The original Shrek had a solid formula within the writing that never took itself too serious. It also seemed that they knew way back in 2001, that they were making a movie to compete with Pixar's 'Monster's, Inc', which was released around the same time. They also knew that they were targeting their audience somewhere between 3 and 13, but had hoped to make it appealing enough for adults.

Shrek 2 clearly seems to be geared and targeted towards an older crowd, probably early 20's. That would make sense, seeing that those in their early twenties are the most obsessed with Hollywood in these last few years. Someone must've forgot to target this film during the writing stage to their original audience. My two year old gets bored of this quickly, wanders away from viewing it and pays it no mind at all, unlike the original -- which he loves.

October 26, 2008

Funny

I loved the comedy aspect of this film. The music was also good, just like the first. This, like the first Shrek, will go down in history as one of the best animated films in history. September 25, 2008

This sequel isn't sweet.

Shrek 2 was such a disappointment. I loved Shrek and waited anxiously to see the sequel but I just couldn't get into this one at all. It's pretty slow and choppy, the plot this time around is pretty lame. I am sure Shrek the Third is dumb as well, keep away from this stinker! June 23, 2008

I guess some things must stop in order to retain value and significance...

All things considered, this is very nice, inventive, cool and by all means terrific movie! But every idea has its limits. Less you say... more it leaves to imagination. I only hope this will not become another bitten to the death sequel... June 19, 2008

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