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Shrek 2 (U) |
Once upon a time, the land of dreams bestowed a wonderful honour on the hideous ogre Shrek, awarding him a specially created Best Animated Feature Oscar for his success in slaying the box office. Shrek 2 ought to be in the running for the main Best Picture Oscar, as it's by some distance the best film of the year so far. The film begins where the last one left off, with Shrek and Princess Fiona on honeymoon. They return to their first marriage crisis, as Fiona wants Shrek to meet her parents, and Shrek is reluctant, certain that they will reject him. He's right, of course, as the King and Queen wanted Fiona to marry Prince Charming, and are horrified to find that not only has their beautiful daughter married a disgusting green ogre, but also become one herself. Shrek 2 shares the first film's delight in subverting fairytale conventions, with Prince Charming recast as a weak-willed mummy's boy, the Fairy Godmother a vain tyrant, and the famous ogre slayer Puss In Boots a cute little kitten. As a result the plot is consistently surprising, and rattles along at a thrilling pace. This pace is maintained by cramming every scene with a wide range of
gags and pastiches, even rivalling The Simpsons in this respect,
which is as high a compliment as I can imagine for this type of material.
This bombardment of references, which I won't spoil by revealing, is one
reason for the film's record takings, as audiences flock back to catch
the jokes they missed. Best of all is the animation, which is not only gorgeous to look at, but clearly surpasses Disney Pixar on a technical level. Dreamworks invented new tools for this film, including 'bounce shader', which mimics the way light bounces around different surfaces, and 'subsurface scattering', which replicates the way skin radiates light. There are other tricks too, with the end result that a number of scenes look 'real', as much as a fairytale world can look real. Shrek 2 is a stunning achievement; a hilarious, thrilling comedy
that sets new standards for CGI animation, with a hip, modern agenda that
makes Finding Nemo look very old-fashioned indeed. David Haviland, 17.06.04 |