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This Film On

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Shrek 2

(2004)

93 min. DreamWorks. Directors: Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury, Conrad Vernon. Cast: Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Julie Andrews, Antonio Banderas.

Fast but not terribly funny, Shrek 2 is the perfect movie to sort of pay attention to in the back of a minivan. At the screening I attended, the most vocal audience "response" was two children chasing each other up and down the mountainous stairs of the cineplex aisles, while giggling maniacally, for the duration of the movie (as their mother, evidenced by the slow slapping of her flip-flops, pursued them in too-slow-burn mode). I'm pretty sure neither of the kids has any idea what happened during the movie, but they seemed to be having a lot of fun.

Lest you think the rambunctious rascals soured me on the movie, consider this: Shrek 2 twists itself into knots to invent a reason to remake the same decision already made by its lead characters in the first film. It is a pointless exercise in rehashing which only intermittently succeeds at logically extending the first film and rather focuses on restaging all the bits people seemed to like the first time: the fart jokes, the pop-song covers, and the TV and movie parodies. Unfortunately, those elements are just as weak now as they were the first time.

What 2001's Shrek had in its favor was comic zing, a startling animation style, and a novel-enough premise based on William Steig's book. Shrek 2--dedicated to the now-late Steig--remythologizes the first film's remythology, and nothing feels more played out in the summer of 2004 than tweaking fairy tales (Ella Enchanted, anyone?). The new film resumes and upgrades that smooth animation style (spectacular settings and "camera" moves, cold facial expression), but mostly falls down in the joke department. The gags are well-executed but overly familiar, like the deceptively cute "puppy-dog" eyes of feline avenger Puss in Boots. The most memorable joke in Shrek 2 is a bawdy one, catching Pinocchio in an unpleasant admission about his style of dress.

The rest is a sort-of impressive jog to the climax, built on hollow-ringing motivation. After a bland honeymoon montage stringing together movie parodies, Shrek and Fiona (voices of Mike Meyers and Cameron Diaz) face a meet-the-parents weekend in the land of Far Far Away. As the first film's DuLoc was to Disneyland, Far Far Away is to Hollywood and, yup, there's Joan Rivers playing herself. Again, this post-modern fairy-tale pop-culture survey targets Disney, but anyone can make fun of "Be Our Guest" from Disney's Beauty and the Beast (and let's face it, many have). The problem is that Beauty and the Beast is superior to either Shrek movie, so just who's laughing at who here?

DreamWorks attracted Julie Andrews and John Cleese to play Fiona's royal parents, which is great except that neither is given any stellar dialogue. Eddie Murphy returns as the mouthy Donkey and supplies a running stream of moderately amusing invective. The most entertaining voice comes from Antonio Banderas as Puss in Boots, but the actor's panache must compensate for a thinly drawn character whose shifting allegiance is undersold.

Jennifer Saunders (Absolutely Fabulous) plays a nasty Fairy Godmother ("Ogres don't live happily ever after!") who's fodder for a vibrant magic-wand keep-away sequence. Cameos by Pinocchio, the Gingerbread Man, Three Little Pigs, Three Blind Mice, and the "gender-confused" Big Bad Wolf spice up the last act, which is otherwise weighed down by wan take-offs of Mission: Impossible and Ghostbusters.

Not every animated kid-flick includes a pirate saloon pianist with the singing voice of Tom Waits, but for every "Little Drop of Poison," Shrek 2 seems to have ten "Living La Vida Loca" routines. Now that movie ticket prices are stratospheric, a family's best bet is to wait, plunk down $19.99 for the DVD, and let the rambunctious rowdies half-watch it endlessly in the backseat of the minivan.