Major plot stuff revealed only in the well-labeled section at the bottom...you should be able to read the first part safely.

In the spirit of celebrity voiceovers, please read this opinion as if James Earl Jones were reading the text to you.

On the recommendation of the gregarious groom and blushing bride (or perhaps that red tint to her face was from the mead?) roymeo went to see the newest animated movie from Dreamworks SKG, Shrek.

Ordinarily, roymeo doesn't really care which company produced a movie, but this time it is very relevant. First of all, it's an animated movie, and there are only a couple of major players in that world, so you may want to know whether or not it's from the evil Disney empire, the young runt Pixar, or the cool, hip new startup D-SKG. But even if you don't care about that, roymeo believes that there is so much Disney-bashing in this fairy tale that he finds it distracting from the fantasy milieu.

James Earl Jones pauses to take a drink from his designer spring water.

Our story begins, with a badly accented ogre dancing in his beloved swampy, wetland area. Destroying this natural area with bad land-management, this ogre is to be our "gross hero". He belches, eats grubs, showers in mud, etc. All this to delight us with disgust. Of course he's still cute, in a green ogre sort of way. This is Shrek.

Several slams on Disney and a jumble of mixed fantasy elements later, a donkey (named "Donkey") with very nice rendered hair (they hype the hair a lot in PR type stuff....unfortunately, his front legs still seem to pop in and out of his torso without reference to skin. But I admit that they've made great strides with him.) comes to pester Shrek like the little brother stereotype from a bad children's movie. AND he breaks into modern songs in a humorous (James Earl Jones laughs) but distracting (James Earl Jones has a disdainful tone in his voice) from the fantasy world sort of way.

Soon after Shrek's not only living below the poverty line, but all the other refugee's from Disney movies have moved in with Shrek in a sort of Funny Ghetto or Funny Auschwitz. Either they all escaped and are hiding there, or the evil Prince has imprisoned them there in the swamp, it takes a while to determine. So, it's time for a crabby ogre to set things right and go talk to this prince.

Michael Eisner the head of Disney corporation, (voice by John Lithgow) stars as the Prince. Well, not literally, but referentially, just in case you started getting into the movie, here's some more real life stupidity to throw off your suspension of disbelief. After a couple Disney references, Shrek fights all the knights (roymeo found the Professional Wrestling bit to be an acceptable intrusion of the modern world, but only because it was done well and turned the violence into a reflection of other violence easily available on television (protects them from complaints of violence), for some reason this modern reference didn't annoy roymeo...perhaps some of it was because there were no overt references to modern wrestlers (at least not that roymeo caught...it would have been annoying to see Shrek do a Rowdy Roddy Piper bit, etc.). With a little help from Donkey, Shrek is sent on the quest to rescue the cursed princess from the dragon-protected tower.

James Earl Jones takes on a more rousing tone of voice

The adventure is on, with plenty of neat ideas, such as the life of the dragon, a humorous bridge crossing, and the Princess is a little spitfire, with plenty of her own ideas. After about 1/2 way through, the movie becomes much more of a psychological story than an action story. Our characters walk back, revealing, fighting, discussing, and misunderstanding each other (much in the way that they do in Moulin Rouge). But in the end, it's all fixed with a little cartoon magic.

Conclusion
This is another one of those movies that got worse the more roymeo thought about it, especially after seeing Moulin Rouge, which did a much better job with the modern-world references and songs springing out of conversation in ingenious ways. But roymeo did leave the theater with a warm glow, impressed with the animation because it tried to create a fantasy world as opposed to failing miserably at creating a realistic world (if only the writers could have left more of the real world out of it). It does have a simple enough story for children to enjoy, probably not become too scared at any point (the Prince is short and fun to pick on, the dragon is scary, but only as scary as Aunt Bertha) and at least attempts to have some neat twists (dare I say a "progressive" ending?). If you are into cartoons and animation, you might want to see it. If you worship at the Disney altar (or even hate Disney but want your fantasy to be fantastic not antagonistic) you might find those modern entertainment business references annoying.

This is James Earl Jones, wishing you all the best. If you haven't seen the movie, you might not want to read the random discussion of topics that roymeo discusses below. If you are stopping here, why don't you rate this review for roymeo, so he can continue hiring famous personages to do the voice work for his reviews?

NOTE: No James Earl Jones' were harmed in the making of this review.

NOTE: James Earl Jones has nothing to do with the movie Shrek.

--------------- spoiler below here ---------------
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So, the message of this movie is "It's OK to be an ogre, as long as you are a cute ogre"? I've heard several people talk about how the movie is 'uplifting' in that it says it's OK to be 'not classically beautiful', etc. But I didn't really get that. The princess in ogre form is a pretty cute ogre. Just as having a cute lioness in The Lion King doesn't really relieve any social pressure, this movie is hardly going to do anything to reduce the social pressure to be very good looking for anyone, let alone young women. Sure, it's OK to be chubby, but little Tiffany isn't going to stop putting her finger down her throat because of this movie....Just as she didn't decide it was OK to have pointy ears and a tail because of The Lion King.
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Isn't Momma Bear turned into a rug (Is Disney really as bad as the Third Reich?) and then restored, later?
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For some reason, this sort of reality intrusion really bugs me. Perhaps the references will all be over the heads of kids watching it, just as WWII references in Bugs Bunny or adult references in M*A*S*H on TV went over mine, and now I can watch those and be amazed at what I missed. But if it in any way detracts from children's enjoyment, the movie has failed on another level.
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But I suppose that Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, and Cameron Diaz aren't there to be recognizable for the children, either.
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And finally, hey, isn't that ending pretty anti-climactic? At least as far as the "Prince" character goes, he's there and then just gone. *shrug*
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Recommended:
No