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Shrek Customer Reviews (58 - 60 of 105 Reviews)

Priceless!
This is one of the best movies I have seen in ages. It is rare treat finding a movie that is both as entertaining and intelligent as this one. There is some potty humour, especially during the opening credits, but this is only a small part of the movie. The rest of the movie is a wonderful satire of fairy tales, twisting around such common notions as ugly = evil and beautiful = good, and pokes fun at the capitalist power-driven nature of the Disney empire and at Michael Eisner and his shortcomings (Katzenberg getting revenge?).

Shrek's life of solitude is disrupted when the local tyrant decides to evict all fairy-tale characters from his kingdom, sending them to live in the swamp. In order to get back his privacy, Shrek makes a deal with the tyrant to retrieve a bride. Joining him on his quest is a talking mule voiced by Eddie Murphy who is, to my pleasant surprise, actually very amusing. And the princess is not a typical "damsel in distress". All of the voice talents pull off a wonderful job, and the computer animation is some of the best I've ever seen. They even pull of the most difficult task of portraying facial expressions in such a realistic manner that you can really make out distinctive emotions.

This film strongly appeals to an adult audience. And unlike most recent Disney films, there isn't a surplus of musical scenes that become sickening after a while. On the other hand, some younger viewers may find scenes, e.g., of Shrek eating eyeballs disturbing, but the strength of a child's stomach is usually underappreciated by adults who have forgotten what childhood is like (come on, I bet you sang the songs about Gopher Guts and old women swallowing flies and spiders when you were a kid too).

Once again, Dreamworks has done an excellent job.

Visually stunning and constantly hilarious
I sometimes manage to be among the last individuals on earth to see a blockbuster movie, and such is the case with Shrek. Having finally seen the film, however, I will certainly echo the high praises it has received from those who have come before me. Shrek is visually stunning, continuously hilarious, and uplifting in its message. It's fun for the entire family, appealing to adults and children in equal measure, and it just makes you feel good after the credits roll. The DVD throws in tons of extras, giving you more Shrek bang for the bucks.

The look of this film is amazing; animation has definitely entered the twenty-first century, and the guys and gals at Dreamworks are forging the way ever onward and upward. You really have to see the animation in Shrek to appreciate it - I can tell you that it is in stunning 3-D detail, that each character has more incredibly realistic and subtle facial expressions than I do, that you could sometimes swear (especially when watching Princess Fiona) that you are watching real people on the screen, and that Shrek transports you to a world unlike any you have seen before, but that barely begins to describe the animation magic at play here. The real proof of the pudding is in the details, and you will be amazed at all the subtle nuances you pick up each time you watch the film: you can see the wind in the grass, leaves blowing, dust rising, clothes wrinkling and moving naturally in relation to each character's body movements, hair stirring characters' hair (except for Shrek, of course, who is quite bald - not to mention green and altogether ogrely), etc.. The attention to detail is simply amazing, and I can't help but wonder why this film didn't cost about fifty billion dollars to make based on what I saw.

Of course, the incredible animation would all go for naught without great actors supplying the voices of the characters, and you would have to look long and hard to beat the cast of Shrek. Start with the two funniest men in Hollywood, Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy, as Shrek the lovable ogre and his sidekick Donkey; then throw in Cameron Diaz as Princess Fiona and John Lithgow as the bad guy. Myers and Murphy will keep you in stitches from start to finish. I won't go into the whole plot of the story here, as I'm sure that information is pretty easy to find hereabouts, but I will say the story is incredibly witty and is truly the stuff that all-time classic films are made of. While it turns the world of fairy tales on its ear, it does come bearing some important morals, the most important of which is the advice to not judge a person by his/her appearance. Shrek is much more than a disgusting, disagreeable ogre, and Fiona turns out to be the least typical princess you could ever hope to meet.

The extras on the DVD give you a good idea of the creative process that went into bringing Shrek to life: storyboards of deleted scenes, an HBO special on the making of the movie, technical goofs, and an informative commentary by the filmmakers. In terms of pure entertainment, you also get the complete extended dance party ending of the film, the means to jump directly to many of the funnier or more visually stunning scenes, music videos from Smashmouth and Baha Men, and a number of silly little games to play. Consider all of these extras as icing on the proverbial cake, however, as the movie alone packs more entertainment than almost any other DVD you will ever find.

Toy Story Meets Grimm's Fairy Tales- funfor kids and adults!
If you can get past the hokey ending (not the cool video at the end...the corny deus ex machina...or should i say dragon ex machina) you have a delightful and rare equal to the Disney animated feature films. The cast, though never actually working in the same room (according to the "making of") clicks wonderfully. Mike Myers voices a very understated ogre, Eddie Murphy shines as Shrek's wise-cracking sidekick, John Lithgow plays the delicious villian with the Napoleanic complex and Cameron Diaz is the beautiful princess with a dark secret.

There are plenty of jokes that adults will enjoy (plenty of potshots at Disney, for example), but its straightforward enough that kids won't mind mom and dad chuckling right along side them.

Shrek is a spectacular fantasy, populated with characters from everyone's favorite childhood stories (from Pinochio to the mirror from Sleeping Beauty to 3 Blind Mice and the Gingerbread Man) with an obvious, if slightly flawed moral (beauty is not skin deep unless you're short - in which case your evil). I'd rank this just a notch below the 2 Toy Stories for all-time great kids movies. The fantastic menus and tons of extras make this a must have - with or without kids!

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