nce upon a time, a green ogre named Shrek (Myers) lived in a lovely swamp and tore pages out of a fairy-tale book to wipe his, um, bottom. As foul as he can be, Shrek breaks wind in a pond to kill fish for his breakfast, showers in mud and eats eyeballs by the spoonful.
The nearby villagers, naturally, don't like having him around. But when they descend on his tree-trunk home, torches in hand, the big green guy just has to yell at them, and they run away. Which suits Shrek fine. "I like my privacy," he says.
The diminutive Lord Farquaad (Lithgow), meanwhile, has ordered his knights to round up the local fairy-tale creatures and relocate them to "designated resettlement facilities." But Donkey (Murphy), a talking beast of burden, escapes and runs smack into the ogre, who saves him from the knights. Big mistake. Shrek, who prefers his solitude, can't shake the garrulous ass.
But Shrek's problems are only beginning. Word has spread throughout the forest about Shrek's donkey feat. The fairy-tale creatures have escaped to Shrek's swamp: blind mice, pigs, big bad wolves, the whole lot. To get them all off his land, Shrek will have to take it up with Farquaad himself.
Farquaad has his own designs. He needs to marry a princess if he wants to become a real king, and the one he wants lives in a high tower guarded by a fire-breathing dragon. He organizes a tournament for his knights, and the winner will get the chance to rescue the maiden.
Shrek arrives in the middle of the tournament, and, when attacked, easily defeats the knights. This gives Farquaad an idea: He'll offer to rid Shrek's land of the fairy-tale guys if Shrek agrees to rescue the princess, donkey in tow. Shrek agrees, not realizing how much he really stands to gain--and lose.
Mean, green and sure to be seen
The computer-animated Shrek comes from first-time directors Adamson and Jenson, animation studio PDI/DreamWorks (Antz) and DreamWorks partner and onetime Disney animation honcho Jeffrey Katzenberg. The pedigree is important for several reasons.
PDI's groundbreaking animation imbues Shrek with an otherworldly feel and beats the upcoming Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within to the theaters as the first major film with CGI human stars. Shrek, Donkey, Princess Fiona and Lord Farquaad move with cartoony realism and expressiveness heretofore unimagined. Animators have also created a convincing world of nature inhabited by a host of fantasy creatures. If there is a flaw in the animation, it is the woodenness of secondary characters and crowds, which reminds one of video games.
But the animation is only as good as the story, and Shrek more than delivers. It is an engaging, hilarious and touching fairy tale that also lampoons fairy-tale conventions, especially those of Katzenberg's former employer. More on that later.
Based on a children's book by William Steig, Shrek resembles DreamWorks' Galaxy Quest in telling a genre story while turning genre conventions on their heads. But the film never loses its heart and takes its characters and their feelings seriously.
What it doesn't take seriously are the fairy-tale movies that have come before, especially those produced by a certain company whose mascot is a six-foot mouse. Snowy maidens, tiny bell-sized fairies, sleeping beauties and talking wooden boys all get their shots, and Farquaad's kingdom of Dulac features turnstiles, a parking lot and dolls that sing an annoyingly catchy tune. The unsubtle satire is nevertheless hilarious, especially for those familiar with Katzenberg's rancorous departure from Disney.
But the movie wouldn't be the same without the voice talent, particularly Myers. DreamWorks reportedly scrapped millions of dollars of animation to allow Myers to re-record his dialogue with Shrek's distinctive Scottish lilt, and it's worth every penny.
Murphy kills as the verbose donkey, Diaz brings Charlie's Angels spunk to Fiona, and Lithgow's famously oleaginous voice is perfect for the evil dwarf Farquaad.
