We find out, later, that King Harold was a frog, and it is his deal with the Fairy Godmother that granted him a human identity at the expense of Fiona’s ability to freely marry. The Fairy Godmother and Prince Charming have a vested interest in breaking up Fiona and Shrek, as the Fairy Godmother had made a deal with Fiona’s own father to have Prince Charming marry Fiona. If the villains’ characterization is not enough, their in-story alignment is even more interesting. These characters rivalling a pair of ogres, who would traditionally be understood as the antagonists, does away with our neat understandings of good and bad that are dependent upon whom can best approximate constructs of beauty. Prince Charming, who is traditionally understood as the too-perfect white knight, is a whiny, spoiled misogynist characteristically disgruntled by his failure to reach Fiona before Shrek did. Here, the Fairy Godmother is deliciously conniving: an exploitative capitalist, who revels in fine-print contracts and wishful debt-collecting, and is summoned by teardrops. We understand the traditional Fairy Godmother as benevolent, almost divine, with her sole purpose to grant wishes and aid the journey of the docile Princess Protagonist. The film’s antagonists, in being a mother-son Fairy Godmother (Jennifer Saunders) and Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) duo, only add to the genius of this film. The exaggerated quality of this kingdom and its stark contrast to The Swamp poke fun at the superficial, dichotomous nature of fairy tales proper and the ridiculousness of the constructs upon which they are predicated: if you don’t find your Prince Charming, you’re better off dead (or, at least, in a state of eternal slumber). Far Far Away, as a kingdom teeming with fairytale archetypes played to their most hyperbolic, contrasts the muddied existence that Shrek and Fiona call their life. This disturbance is launched by Shrek and Fiona’s trip to the aptly-named Far Far Away to reconnect with Fiona’s parents, King Harold (John Cleese) and Queen Lillian (Julie Andrews), who are unaware of the fact that Fiona married an ogre and is now an ogre herself. Shrek, in all his green paunchiness, is an infection to the tissue of the constructed perfection that Fiona’s royal family abides by his presence upends their notions of what it means to be beautiful and, therefore, worthy of love and value. And not just because he is an ogre, but because his ogre status has brought about their daughter’s own dormant orge-ness. Fiona’s (Cameron Diaz) parents aren’t simply opposed to Shrek (Mike Myers) because he is disagreeable (which he, admittedly, is) but because he’s an actual literal ogre, for crying out loud. What would otherwise be a typical Meet the Parents slash get the girl back narrative becomes a deep examination of the ludicrousness of both constructed beauty standards and, in turn, pseudoscientific hierarchies of personhood.
What Shrek does so well is take the conventions of fairy tale lore that we are already familiar with and repurposing it to imbue a conventional narrative with a new dimension. The strong lore of the Shrek universe is the basis for the sequel’s narrative soundness. However, I’m a firm believer in the power of a franchise sequel, with this one as no exception: it functions within a pre-established story world, thus facilitating a true hour and change of pure, unadulterated romp.
#Shrek 2 movie#
I admit that I don’t remember much of the first movie in the series, which establishes this film’s lore it is not a movie that I have rewatched nearly as much as its sequel. There’s a talking donkey, an assassin who is a talking Spanish Tabby cat, and what kind of name is Shrek, anyway?īut I believe it is this self-conscious silliness that makes the film work so well. On the surface, Shrek 2 seems like little more than a silly animated film it’s the sequel to a film about an ogre who saves a princess from her castle who also - as luck would have it - happens to be an ogre as well.
I genuinely believe it to be a masterpiece.
I was, and still am, enamoured by this movie. Shrek 2 is one of the earliest movies I ever watched and one of five movies - the other four being Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (2005), Beauty and the Beast (1991), and School of Rock (2003) - my family had on DVD while I was growing up that, naturally, played on heavy rotation on my TV. Let all records show that, while I do not use illicit substances, my statement was not hyperbolic in the slightest. “What kind of drugs are you on?” paired with a laughing crying emoji was a message I received from a man on Hinge in response to my claim that Shrek 2 (2004) is the best animated movie of all time.