Shrek Review (Classic Write-Up)

A week ago today, Shrek turned fifteen years old. One of the biggest animated movies of all-time that shifted the entire zeitgeist of animated filmmaking officially turned fifteen..and no one seemed to care. Buzzfeed didn't write up a thousand articles about "21 Gifs That Make Shrek Totes Relatable", there was no release of the feature on Blu-Ray to commemorate the occasion. Hell, even the official Facebook page for the film made absolutely no mention of the anniversary. Granted, turning 15 isn't typically as big of a deal in the world of marketing as a movie celebrating its tenth or twenty-fifth anniversary of existence, but still, the absolute radio silence on the occasion struck me as shocking.

Then again, in the years since the first Shrek's release, all the promise the film carried has been wiped out. The success of something slightly more adult-skewing in American animation didn't usher in more boundary-pushing animated fare, but rather just spawned countless "sassy fairy tale movies" and a trend of animated family films (like Chicken Litte, Shark Tale, MegaMind and Robots) ending with big pop musical numbers. Even more damning are the endless amount of Shrek follow-ups DreamWorks commissioned in the wake of the first Shrek's massive box office, with the third and fourth films in the series being a tremendous step down in quality.

Fifteen years ago, Shrek was a cinematic force to be reckoned with. Now? He's mostly known as the star of an internet meme centering around his sexually explicit and graphically violent exploits. But in case you were wondering, yes, the  first Shrek does indeed hold up. There are a number of cracks in it storytelling for sure (antagonist Lord Farquaad apparently has his knowledge and level of control over the exiled fairy tale creatures vary from scene to scene) but it's still a really clever movie whose appeal is more than easy enough to discern.

What's important to remember about Shrek is when it came out, being released in the second year of the 21st century and coming hot off a decade where Disney had dominated the field of animation with their fairy tale musicals that everyone and their mother had attempted to imitate. Hell, DreamWorks had tried to go for that angle themselves, albeit in a slightly more "adult" manner, in their first two hand-drawn animation efforts The Prince Of Egypt and The Road To El Dorado. After multiple years of Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz songs filling movie theaters across the nation for so many years, the opening sequence of Shrek containing flatulence so strong that it kills a singular salmon, all set to the tune of Smash Mouth's All-Star, was something akin to an insurrection to conventional American animation storytelling.

Was this an inherently good thing? Eh, that's up for debate. For me personally, Disney had only really struck out truly badly once in their 90's animated musical efforts (Pocahontas is the big o'l misfire for me), but variety is the spice of life as they say, and something undoubtedly different from the norm (at the time) like Shrek is good to have around if only for the sake of having some diversity in terms of storytelling. It also helps that this more satirical approach serves the premise of Shrek well, which has a sweeter undercoat than it seems. Actually, it's worth noting that the presence of pathos (Shrek's trouble with people pigeonholing him before they even met him) makes the darker jokes go down easier.  Like I said, variety is the spice of life and all that and that goes for tone as well.

It struck me as amusing during the opening credits that, of the four lead actors that the film trumpets, John Lithgow is now the by far the most famous individual in the group, with the man himself finding consistent work as a character actor and frequently taking primary roles in noteworthy films like Love Is Strange. Meanwhile, Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy have basically vanished off the face of the Earth (though Myers did sign up for a new project this week, his first live-action role in seven years) and even Cameron Diaz has been MIA since her critically reviled turns in the likes of The Other Woman in 2014. Regardless of where they stand now, the cast works fine in their roles in this particular film, with Myers surprising me in how well he commands genuine sympathy in his vocal performance. I will say though that Diaz always struck me as slightly miscast for that part, her line readings coming across as slightly forced in certain moments compared to the more natural delivery of her co-stars.

In the years since Shrek was released, its reputation (as well as the prominence of three of its four lead actors) has taken a tumble so steep that it would even make Jill's fall look like a minor stumble. But it is worth noting that the film itself still works quite well as a clever comedy with a solid heart, even if it's easy to see that it doesn't quite hold under the strain of time in every regard compared to the efforts from competing animation studio PIXAR in the same era (characters doing the Macarena in the climax is hilariously outdated). All things considered though, Shrek is still a charmer of a motion picture whose myriad of virtues can easily be seen a decade-and-a-half later. Hopefully its overall reputation is improved in the years to come, especially since I have a hunch we're only four years out (if even that) from a Creed/Force Awakens style fifth Shrek movie that will center itself on grown-up versions of Shrek's offspring.