Reviewed by: Becca & Kris

Directed by: Andrew Adamson, Conrad Vernon, & Kelly Asbury

Produced by: John H. Williams, David Lipman, Jeffrey Katzenberg, & Aron Warner

Cast: Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Antonio Banderas, & Jennifer Saunders

Comedy, Action/Adventure, Kids/Family, Science Fiction/Fantasy and Animation 1 hr. 45 min. Picking up exactly where the first movie left off, this movie takes us to the kingdom of Far, Far Away as Shrek and Fiona return to her homeland to tell her parents (Cleese, Andrews) the good news. Not everyone is happy to find her married to an ogre, with the most irate in this group being Prince Charming (Everett), who was supposed to be the one who lifted Fiona's curse. We're also introduced to the mysterious Fairy Godmother (Saunders), and a bar called the Poison Apple, where the villains of the fairy tale world hang out, including the great ogre-slayer, Puss-in-Boots (Banderas).

I loved the first Shrek, I found that it mixed childish humor in well with adult humor. Adult humor that children couldn't really understand, but would probably laugh at anyway. Sadly, I didn't find that Shrek 2 followed the same formula. The humor was brought down a few notches, and was completely related to children. I also felt that alot of scenes were what I call filler scenes, didn't really have anything to do with the movie, but they put them in to waste time.

The story was used, although who couldn't love Antonia Banderas as Poots in Boots. I found the only two characters that were worth any mention was Donkey and Puss in Boots, their combination was the only thing that made me laugh. The movie could of been called Puss and Donkey and been perfect. Like I said the story line was cliche, and every turn was totally perdictable without the adult humor that made the first Shrek so cherishable.

Standing alone (without comparing it to the first Shrek) it's a decent movie but not worth all the hype thats going on about it. The soundtrack is just amazing though, I got that. The first Shrek had an awesome soundtrack as well. All in all, it's entertaining but if you haven't seen it yet, it's not worth paying the theater fees.

The Shrek phenomenon continues with the sequel to the fabulous Dreamworks production. Shrek was a huge success in 2001 when it grossed 267 million dollars. In the first week, Shrek 2 had already pulled in 128 million dollars. Most of the characters from the original return in the sequel, and a few new colorful characters are added as well. I really like Shrek 2, but it doesn’t quite live up to the standards that Shrek set.

The sequel picks up right after Shrek and Fiona get married and they are going on their honeymoon. When Shrek and Fiona get home, they meet up with an old friend and then they find out that they are invited to Far, Far Away, which is Fiona’s home. Some interesting events occur, and let’s just say it takes everything Shrek can muster to become the husband Fiona wants. I felt that at the beginning, the directors had tried too hard to put the feel of Shrek into the sequel. The film was almost too serious at the beginning, which is the main drawback of the film. After ten or fifteen minutes, the tone of the film became much more relaxed and light-hearted.

The jokes seemed to be less forced and became natural. The thing that I noticed about the humor in this film is that a lot of the laughs came from movie spoofs. A movie spoof is when one movie will make fun of another movie by copying a memorable scene from that movie and modifying it to create the desired effect. There were a lot of spoofs in this film, which I was quite fond of since I had seen most of the movies that they spoofed. My favorite character from both films is the Gingerbread Man. I like the Gingerbread man mainly because he has the funniest voice and has some hilarious lines. He repeats his famous line "not the gumdrop buttons" in Shrek 2, and it is probably one of the funniest moments of the film.

My favorite character from Shrek 2 is probably Fairy Godmother because she is just so evil and doesn’t try to hide it. If you enjoyed Shrek, you will more than likely enjoy the sequel. In my opinion, the sequel isn’t as good as the original, but I know some people who liked it more than Shrek. This is a movie for the entire family because the kids will love it, but adults will also love it because a lot of the jokes are directed towards a mature audience. Go see this movie if you want a light-hearted Friday night.