Like the Zucker spoof-principals, the film teems with incidental genius - we defy you not to bust a gut laughing at Farquaad’s interrogation of the Gingerbread Man, or the untimely arrival of the Three Blind Mice at Shrek’s hovel, or Robin Hood’s posse Riverdancing. Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, every Andersen/Grimm fantasy is caught in a fusillade of affectionate piss-take (Farquaad’s rigid kingdom is a direct dig at Disneyland). This is more than simply ex-Disney honcho Katzenberg taking sly potshots at his former employers it’s a full-scale parody of the Mousedom’s chirpy ethic of old. Yet it’s not the dazzle factor that impresses so much with Shrek, as the directors’ flare for storytelling on a sumptuous visual level, letting the script (based on William Steig’s book) do the talking.Īnd it’s one joyous miracle of a script (how is it that only animation writers seem able to do great comedy anymore?) doing the yakking. So, naturally, the work in this inverted fairy tale is a knock-out: humans with proper human faces, not bubble heads, actual furry fur and landscapes that hover delightfully between lush, 3-D, Oz-like backdrops and photo-realistic video game aesthetics. Yes, but it works a treat.Įver since Toy Story shookthe animation rafters, CGI’s awe-inspiring intricacies have become a matter of course.
An ugly, big, green bloke and his smartarse donkey sidekick rescue a prissy princess from a lovelorn dragon for a self-obsessed lordling lacking in stature? And it’s a clever-clever parody-type thing? An animated fairy tale all about animated fairy tales? Tee-hee, how postmodern.