Didn't much care for the first one. It was fluff. Fun fluff, but still, fluff.

I liked its emphasis on loving the person for what they are, rather than forcing them to conform.

I liked the clever jabs at Disney.

But I was bothered by the unnecessarily crass humor and bland pop-culture references, not to mention the poorly chosen and distracting pop songs.

Shrek 2 has all of the things that bugged me about the first one, but the strengths are much MUCH stronger, and the movies pros far outweigh its cons. I was delighted to find it quite satisfying. It gets funnier as it goes (Puss in Boots is GREAT!!!) and the finale is one of the most frenzied and inspired I've seen in some time. (It borrows a whim from the finale of The Muppet Movie, but it does so with brilliant ideas of its own.)

I guess that's why I wasn't so bothered by its constant references to other movies. This time, it didn't feel like it was TRYING to be cool ("Oooh! Let's copy that shot from The Matrix.") Instead, the references to other films were very very clever and made complete sense with what was going on. There's a Mission:Impossible reference that was brilliant.

Oh... Shrek was a good-humored jab at all of Disney's obvious foibles. Shrek 2 is much sharper, and hits the bulls-eye with every dart it throws at Hollywood and its plastic-surgery/cosmetics culture.

I don't want to REVIEW the film... just to let you know that you can look forward to it rather than dreading it.

I'll stop there. My review will be up at CT on opening day.

I notice they've packaged the DVD of the original film with a bonus DVD that takes place on Shrek & Fiona's honeymoon -- I believe it supposedly begins Right After the first movie and ends Right Before the second movie. So what I'm wondering is, does anyone know if there is any overlap, and if so how much, between this bonus DVD and the honeymoon CD that was given out for free to those who saw Sinbad in theatres last year?

I was happy with the first one, si now I'm really looking forward to the second p[art (whereas before I was distinctly sceptical)

Time will tell

Matt

Saw it this morning. Liked it quite a bit. Jeff, you're right, Puss'n'Boots IS fantastic -- I wanted more of him. (But then, I've always been a cat person.) I also thought the scene with the moat and the drawbridge (I'm trying not to give away details here) was hilarious -- the sort of thing you could ONLY do in a wacked-out fairy tale like this one. And as soon as I heard Tom Waits's voice, I thought, "Aha, of COURSE Jeff had to like this film!"

Still a bit wary about letting THIS guy direct the first Narnia movie, though.

FWIW, it will be interesting to see how this film performs at the box office. When the first film came out three years ago, it quickly became the 2nd-highest-grossing cartoon of all time, after The Lion King. (Both films have since been surpassed by Finding Nemo.) It was also the 13th-highest-grossing film of all time, period, for a few months, but since then has been bumped down to 23rd.

They love it at Cannes.

And Jeffrey Katzenberg says they're already working on Shrek 4.

Yes, Shrek 4. As well as Shrek 3, of course.

USA Today loves, loves, loves it.

My review;

Alan: I'm witchoo.

I did a phone interview with Jon Scieszka several years ago -- should I dig up the article?

I'm not too bothered by the fact that dragons etc. are not portrayed as inherently evil in these films -- I mean, given that dragons are not even inherently evil in MYTH, necessarily. (Dragons are GOOD in China, for example.) But it DOES bother me a tad that we are seeing an increasing number of films in which characters who eat other characters are held up as fine, upstanding people with whom we can all get along -- see Ella Enchanted or the 'Anthropomorphic Munchies' thread.

Seeing Donkey and Dragon together at the end of the first film, I could not help but think of Tevye's line that "a bird may love a fish, but where would they build a home together?"

Which reminds me: STAY through the credits, folks! Halfway through the credits, the film comes back on with one of the best gags in the film.

The source of the film's character is a book by William Steig, who died last year and whose children's books were, in my experience, really great about 66% of the time and really not-great the other 33%. His Shrek was a totally different character, but the coincidental feature for purposes of your earlier posts was that the book Shrek struggles to come to terms with the fact that certain types of behavior are expected of or endemic to ogres.

Alan, no I don't want to spoil it. I'll send you a PM.

Ted Baehr sez:

Ted Baehr wrote:
: The director of both SHREK I and II is Adam Adamson . . .

Everybody seems to have trouble with this guy's name. (Jeff, your Film Forum yesterday said it was Andrew Abramson!) It's Andrew Adamson.

: . . . who is reported to be a Christian and so is directing THE LION, THE WITCH &
: THE WARDROBE.

"And so"? I frankly don't care whether the adapter of that story is a Christian or not -- it is the film itself that matters to me.

: The are some very clear moral and Christian worldview elements in the movie,
: especially the overriding theme of self-sacrifice and "do unto others as they would
: do unto you."

Oh, that's HILARIOUS -- and revealing, too. And here I thought the Christian message was "do unto others as YOU WOULD HAVE THEM do unto you."

Great points from Jason Walsh in the itty bitty Marin Independent Journal:

Yeah, the fact that Shrek and Fiona have to be IDENTICAL in order to be lovers was a point of contention for some people when the first movie came out, too -- it arguably would have made a more powerful statement if Fiona, the human, had married Shrek, the ogre. But I guess that's where Donkey and Dragon come in.

Adamson is under attack for taking a writing credit. I wasn't able to find the original post in the forums, but there are excerpts here and here. Over at wordplay.com, Shrek co-writer Ted Elliott wrote:

Well, he did write The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, right? So he can't be all bad...

Maybe he didn't want to make a movie based on the screenplay for Shrek 2 so much as he wanted to make a movie based on his memory of the screenplay for Shrek 2 ...

Yowzah. With a weekend haul of $104.3 million and another $20.9 million gleaned the previous Wednesday and Thursday, Shrek 2 is now virtually tied with The Passion of the Christ for the best Wednesday-to-Sunday opening weekend ever. (The original Shrek grossed $42.3 million in its opening weekend.)

This also marks the second film to gross $100 million in a single weekend (after Spider-Man's $114.8 million in 2002) and the best opening weekend ever for an animated film (beating the $70.3 million record set last year by Finding Nemo). Also, Shrek 2's Saturday haul of $44.8 million is the largest single-day gross of any film, ever.

Of course, some of this was helped by the fact that the film, currently playing in 4,163 theatres, is currently enjoying the widest release of all time.

I saw this movie yesterday. I thought that it was better and funnier than the first. I was laughing so hard in some spots.

Go see it.

The kids laughed at pretty much all of it, I laughed at some of it, and I've already forgotten exactly everything I laughed at, with the exception of the really cute shot of the Puss with big, sad eyes. The thematic elements, such as they are, are almost completely indecipherable to me, being sandwiched around so many (I mean, SO MANY) references and homages that nobody apart from adults will understand.

I'm now sick of references and in-jokes and cute giant Gingerbread Men rampaging just like the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man. What sort of creativity is this? The lasting memory I'll have from this film experience was the couple about my age sitting directly behind us, soaking it all in approvingly. Pinocchio does the little shuffle step from Michael Jackson's repetoire circa 1983, the guy bellows out, "Ha, ho, THAT'S SO WRONG!!" Shrek's rescuers ape a scene from Mission Impossible and the guy just busts out laughing and expressing admiration for the cleverness on display.

Few, if any of these references were offensive, so it's not really a matter of not wanting my kids to see them. Though, boy, a thong-wearing Pinocchio. My humor circuits couldn't possibly have been readied for something like that. It's just, really, why would they want to see those references when they likely wouldn't fit the narrative as well as some other image or dialogue which does not have a hypertextual meaning? They don't understand the references, and without the slick popcult knowledge I have from wasting hours on Night Tracks as a teen, I wouldn't find much of this to be entertaining contextually.

I don't so much dislike the film. It just seems the blandest sort of entertainment possible; a "kids movie" too cool to be aimed at a child's sensibilities, instead preferring the tastes of faux-nostalgic adults who are slumming it. Subverting just enough to be postured as the anti-Disney, but playing along with enough of the princess rubbish to still be able to sell Princess Fiona dolls.

Meanwhile, Disney (or, more precisely, its Pixar minions) runs its Incredibles trailer beforehand, and you just know that even though they give away none of the story and few of the big gags in the trailer, it will have so much more that meets the eye. And it won't be forgettable. It isn't even a fair fight, really. Especially when Dreamworks runs their trailer for the shark movie beforehand, too, and it looks bad and, in contrast, I have little reason to believe that film will also exhibit the Pixaresque quality of showing little in the trailer and delivering something larger that means something apart from its referential hipness.

All this just when Dreamworks developed that new animation title screen thingie. All dressed up and nothing to show.

And, as an aside, I'm not sure there are more than a couple-- two or three-- things about Shrek 2's animation that I enjoy more than 2D, hand-drawn stuff. The donkey, Puss and the gingerbread man are visually impressive, but not much else does anything for me on the eye candy front. I kept looking for something as neat as Sully's fur, but came away wanting. One problem, I think, is that Dreamworks uses too many human characters in these films, and human characters still look somewhat clunky and unconvincing in CGI mode. Pixar (yeah, I know I'm really throwing them every kind of laurel) seems to understand that human characters are to be kept to an absolute minimum, and better still if you can keep the humans small and short, or if you can show only portions of them (hands, head, feet).

I hope Shrek 3 manages to work in "The Emperor's New Clothes." That's a reference I could appreciate.

Of course, no one here cares about the box office, but a new record is a new record, so ...

It seems Shrek 2 has accelerated the rate at which it rakes in the green. It was one of five films that tied for 5th-fastest to $100 million, and then one of three films that tied for 2nd-fastest to $200 million -- but it blew away the old record for fastest to $300 million last weekend when it hit that mark on its 18th day; the previous record of 22 days was set by Spider-Man two years ago. (Spider-Man holds the record in the other two categories.)

Next up: the record for fastest to $400 million is 66 days, a tie set by Titanic in 1997 and equalled by Spider-Man in 2002. (The Phantom Menace did it in 67 days, and the only other films to cross that line -- Star Wars and E.T. -- did so on their 20th anniversaries.)

Can Shrek 2 beat that record? It has until July 22 to do so.

Looks like The Passion of the Christ might not even be the top-grossing film of the YEAR, let alone of all time.

This today from IMDb's studio briefing page.

Russell Lucas wrote:
: Actually, I'm hopeful that if Shrek 2 does anything, it renders discussion of box
: office irrelevant to anybody but studio suits.

And numbers geeks, like me.

FWIW, as of this weekend, Shrek 2 has grossed $354 million and has thus passed Finding Nemo to become the top-grossing cartoon of all time. At the rate it's going, it should pass The Passion of the Christ to become the top film of the year by NEXT weekend.

Yeah, while I was conscious of the Ghostbusters allusion, I thought the giant Gingerbread Man was just a fantastically inspired bit of lunacy in its own right -- it was the sort of thing you could ONLY do in a wacked-out fairy tale like this one. And as for all the pop-culture allusions -- well, like I've said before, in the Ella Enchanted thread, there IS a tradition for this sort of thing, known as "the panto".

Shrek 2 only wishes it had half the wit and heart of The Muppet Movie... Actually, nah, the creators are probably too "hip" to want to be like something as good as that.

Hey now, it might have been largely shallow and too pop-culture heavy for it's own good, but I was pleasently surprised to hear Tom Waits playing when they visited the Poison Apple and then Nick Cave when they returned. And, of course, having Larry King as the voice of the bartender.

The film grossed over $4 million yesterday, and it's only $1.3 million or so behind The Passion of the Christ, so ... odds are very, very good that, by tonight, Shrek 2 will be the top-grossing film of 2004. Curiously, though, Shrek 2 is currently only #5 on the worldwide chart for this year, apparently owing to the fact that it has barely been released anywhere outside North America.

Saw this last night,

Was a bit disappointed actually. I guess having read Jeffrey's opening review that he didn't like the first one, but liked this I (who loved the first) expected great things. Alas it fell short of the first in my estimation, mainly due to the sequel factor (as in the first broke some ground, and whilst the second was more of the same the experience of watchinfg it wasn't the same as the experience of watching the first).

Anyway on to others' comments

They swapped Larry King's voice for someone else's in another English-speaking territory?

Weird.

I'm not sure how often this sort of thing happens, but I remember reading a fascinating article a few years back on how France and Quebec produce very, very different French-language dubs of The Simpsons.

Incidentally, in the interest of keeping all things box-office up-to-date, Shrek 2 shattered the all-time record for fastest $400 million a week or two ago -- it accomplished this feat in 43 days, easily beating the 66-day record set by Titanic and tied by the original Spider-Man. With $414 million in the domestic till, Shrek 2 is now easily the top-grossing film of the decade so far, and the 5th-highest-grossing film of all time. If it makes another $17 million, it will beat The Phantom Menace to become the top-grossing sequel of all time, too. (However, owing to a slow start in its overseas release, the film is currently only #20 on the all-time worldwide chart.)

I wrote:
: If it makes another $17 million, it will beat The Phantom Menace to become the
: top-grossing sequel of all time, too.

Not that anyone cares, of course, but just a note here to the effect that, as of yesterday (Thursday), Shrek 2 has indeed become the top-grossing sequel of all time -- at least on the domestic chart, where it is also #4 overall. (Worldwide, it's #14 on the chart, and sequel-wise, it's still behind The Phantom Menace, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and the last two Lord of the Rings films. But give it time...?)

Okay, maybe I'm jumping the gun a little here, but if present trends continue, then today or, at the latest, tomorrow will be the day that Shrek 2 passes E.T. to become the third-highest-grossing film of all time, on the domestic chart.

This is not the first time E.T. has been at #4 -- between 1999 and its 2002 re-release, it was surpassed by Titanic and Episodes I and IV of Star Wars -- but I guess Spielberg can take some comfort in the knowledge that he co-owns the studio that made Shrek 2.

FWIW, Shrek 2 is also currently #12 on the all-time worldwide chart, as well as #29 on the domestic chart once it has been adjusted for inflation (just ahead of 1984's Ghostbusters and right behind 1959's Sleeping Beauty).

Well isn't THAT nice. The studio sent me a copy of the Shrek 2 DVD today -- the widescreen edition, even -- so now I don't even have to THINK about buying it.

Or do I? I've noticed that DreamWorks has released a plethora of discs related to the Shrek franchise, and I gotta say, it irks me.

At the moment, the only discs I have are the two-disc special edition of the first movie and, as of today, the widescreen edition of the second movie.

But wait! What's this? Apparently the first movie was re-issued as a single-disc edition, available in both widescreen and fullscreen versions, back when DreamWorks revamped their animated-DVD line-up last year, and it looks like that disc might have not only less extras than the two-disc set had, but a couple of otherwise unavailable new extras, as well.

And to make matters worse, there's a four-disc 'The Story So Far' boxed set which includes the FULLSCREEN versions of the first two films, plus the 3-D film (in widescreen!) that was released as an extra with the first film earlier this year, plus a bonus disc with yet more special features dedicated to the second film. So if you want that bonus disc, you HAVE to buy the fullscreen versions of the first two films. Even though the 3-D film is widescreen. Urk.

And this is all in addition to the special CD-ROM that was given to the handful of kids who saw Sinbad in the theatres.

The funny thing is that I find this bothers me even though I have never thought the Shrek films were all that special and, thus, the Shrek films are very low on my list of discs to collect. But man, just knowing that studios DO stuff like this makes me nervous about what they might do with the DVDs for blockbusters that I DO like.