The movie skewers not only animated-film and fairy-tale conventions but also their purveyors -- namely, Disney. The villain, diminutive Lord Farquaad (I bet whoever came up with that name was jumping with glee at the thought of kids who can't yet say "r" pronouncing it to their parents), lives in a theme-park-like compound, complete with named parking lots, rope lines, turnstiles, exhaustive rules, and even identical houses in the style of those in Disney's town, Celebration.
With a soundtrack that includes Smash Mouth's "All Star" and a raucous version of "I'm a Believer" (the perfect song for this movie), Shrek has a hip, modern sensibility. Its parodies of Disney songs flirt with South Park territory, though swearing in the movie is pretty much limited to a few double entendres of "ass" (well, and there's my favorite character, the Gingerbread Man, who defiantly shrieks, "Eat me!" at his torturers). Fairy tale characters abound, but act in very un-fairy-tale-like ways (e.g., Cinderella and Snow White viciously vie for the bouquet thrown at a wedding).
The actors voicing the characters all acquit themselves well, although Mike Myers' Scottish accent, which was funny in So I Married an Ax Murderer when he kept shouting, "Heed!" at his large-noggined son, is less entertaining here. Eddie Murphy is great as Donkey, who cheerfully anoints himself as the ogre Shrek's friend, ignoring Shrek's antipathy. Cameron Diaz brings spirited spark to Princess Fiona, who adheres to the fairy tale convention of waiting for her true love to rescue her from a dragon-guarded castle, but has very definite ideas about how the rescue should go (and actually is pretty capable of rescuing herself). I have to say that the animation on Princess Fiona is too real and yet not real enough -- she has the creepy verisimilitude of the marionettes in Being John Malkovich or the clay figures in Heavenly Creatures -- like a doll you would lock in a cabinet every night because you're afraid it would come to life and try to kill you while you slept. Or maybe that's just me.
I definitely recommend Shrek, even to those who, like me, don't normally care for animated movies. It is not a children's movie and doesn't condescend to its audience. I doubt it's enough to win over my father, but he's probably a tougher case than most of you.
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