Does It Hold Up? Shrek 2
I know what you’re thinking, what kind of question is that? And I agree. Not only does Shrek 2 hold up, it holds the distinct honor of being one of the few sequels to outdo its predecessor. At least to me. But why is that? What does this film do so well that it remain a seminal classic all these years later?
I saw Shrek 2 with my group of friends on May 21st 2004 and I was immediately a huge fan of it. Not only is it funnier than the first one but I feel tells a much better story in what happens after Happily Ever After.
Shrek and Fiona are married and living out their happily ever after when Fiona’s parents summon her and her husband to Far, Far, Away to celebrate her marriage. What her parents are not expecting is the ogre Shrek to be her one and only and what follows is a hilarious send up of Hollywood under the guise of Far Far Away. It is astounding to me even to this day just how much mileage they get out of that joke. From the silly joke names of the stores to the idea that all the princesses live in their own castle’s here, all the beats hit their mark. The best joke comes late in the game and remains to this day for me one of the best over your head when your a kid jokes ever made in an animated film.
The gang back in Shrek’s swamp is watching KNIGHTS on tv, a play on COPS and they watch as Shrek, Donkey and Puss in Boots are arrested in far, far, away and not only does donkey, played by the very black Eddie Murphy, shout police brutality during the proceedings but the Knights find a dime bag of cat nip in Pusses pocket to which he replies, that’s not mine. Good god damn if that isn’t the funniest shit ever. In 2004 I was about two years away from trying weed and still thought the world revolved around me so both those bits flew right over my fourteen year old brain. But fuck, if that epiphany moment wasn’t amazing years later re watching the film and getting that whole send up. I still sometimes just cue up that clip on youtube for a laugh.
Antonio Banderas is also an inspired addition to the cast as the swashbuckling cat Puss In Boots, a play on his Zorro lineage. In fact, all the new additions shine in this film. From Rupert Everett as the pretty and dumb Prince Charming, to Jennifer Saunders wicked Fairy Godmother, to legends John Cleese and Julie Andrews as Fiona’s parents, there isn’t a voice wasted in this film.
But let’s break this down script wise and see just how well the plotting and pacing is done to make this not only a great summer movie but a perfect addition to the Shrek Universe. In fact the only good addition to the Shrek Universe.
The Inciting Incident begins right after the credits roll when Shrek and Fiona return from their honeymoon to find out that Fiona’s parents have invited them to Far, Far, Away to celebrate their marriage. Something Shrek is very much not a fan of, which is his refusal of the call to adventure. Though happy wife, happy life wins out in the end and the two of them plus Donkey set off for far, far, away which happens to be our catalyst and break into act two. See right there they managed to condense a whole act into about maybe ten minutes of screen time just plowing us right into the central plot of the film. Obviously not every film calls for such a quick turnaround but it’s always better to get the train moving as quick as you can, especially in animated films. Kids can only hold their attention for so long so the quicker you get it in gear the better. Also the beauty of a sequel is we now know the characters so there’s no need to waste fifteen to twenty minutes introducing us to all these characters. We know these characters, we love them. We’re already along for the journey so it frees the writer up to dive right into the meat of the story and expand our characters worlds, in this case. Far, Far, Away. We’re taking Shrek out of his element. Out of the swamp and into the public eye. Inspired idea for forcing Shrek to continue to grow despite Happily Ever After.
The B story kicks in after Shrek and Fiona’s arrival when we find out that King Harold secretly made a pact with the fairy godmother wherein Prince Charming would marry Fiona in exchange for Harold’s own happy ending and is ordered to find a way to get rid of Shrek, so he goes to a seedy dive bar and hires an assassin to do them in.
This helps build the world and we see how grand the scheme of things are in Far, Far, Away. It seems everyone has to pay a price to get keep their Happily Ever After mirroring what Shrek will have to go through to keep his. Just building every bit of opposition they can to push Shrek to the limit of his love. Great stuff.
The fun and games of the film sees Shrek and Donkey lured out into the woods by King Harold for a fictitious hunting trip, that is actually a trap for the assassin Puss In Boots to do away with Shrek and Donkey. Unable to defeat Shrek, Puss reveals King Harold's plan and offers to join the duo to make amends. The central theme of true love comes into play with Shrek believing that by stealing a happily ever after potion from the fairy godmother, he can then be good enough in her eyes to deserve the Happily Ever After he believes he didn’t earn.
The pacing is just phenomenal in this film. Not too fast and not meandering. It knows exactly the beats it needs to play to get us to the end game. Not a note wasted. I also really enjoy the core emotion of the film in regards to the true love and how to maintain happily ever after, after the credits have rolled. It’s once again another clever play on the old fairy tales.
The midpoint reversal comes after Shrek and his posse steal the happily ever after potion and take it for themselves. Shrek wakes up to find himself a handsome man and Donkey has become a stallion, but they learn that for it to remain permanent Shrek must kiss Fiona by midnight that night. Unbeknownst to them as they race back to the castle, the fairy godmother has already discovered their plan and sent Charming in to pretend to be Shrek to lure Fiona into their trap. By having Charming kiss her at midnight she will remain in human form and married to a man she thinks is Shrek.
I love how light and breezy they manage to make it despite that being a really fucked up plan when you think about. They have no problem pretending to let Fiona think that Charming, who thinks it’s his right to marry her, is Shrek so that he can get what he thinks is rightfully his and use a potion to take her against her will. Like vile people shit, and I love it. It makes them feel more alive and real. They will do vile, evil stuff to get what they want. I love that a kids movie wasn’t afraid to go there and let their villains be villains.
Just simple, easy plotting that really helps push us towards our finale and puts Shrek in the darkest place imaginable and seeing just how far he’ll go to prove what love is worth and how far he’ll go to deserve his Happily Ever After.
Shrek has is all is lost moment when he arrives back at the castle to see Fiona with Charming and after listening to the manipulative words of the fairy godmother, Shrek believes the only way Fiona can be truly happy is to let her go and give her the happily ever after she deserves. The ultimate act of love in his eyes; sacrifice. Just classic story structure done with gusto. It is really hard to write a script that reads this easily. Just so well done.
The bad guys close in moment comes when the fairy godmother gives King Harold a love potion to slip into Fiona’s tea that will ensure that when Charming kisses her she will fall madly in love with him, something Shrek and company overhear but are arrested before they can do anything, which gives us that amazing gag I described earlier.
Our break into three starts as the royal ball begins and Shreks gang from the swamps arrive to break them out of prison and we finally meet the legendary muffin man who creates a giant gingerbread man to break them into the castle. It’s a great action set piece that not only brings back the best of the fairy tale creatures from the first film but has a great payoff to a joke from the first film that leads us straight into our finale, where our central theme of love is reinforced.
Shrek can only watch as he arrives too late to stop Charming from kissing Fiona. His greatest fear realized. Though instead of falling in love with him, Fiona knocks him out cold and King Harold reveals that he switched the potions to right his wrongs seeing how happy Shrek made his daughter.
Enraged the fairy godmother tries to kill Shrek but King Harold deflects the spell which reverts back to the godmother straight up disintegrating her.
Nice.
The spell however did revert King Harold back into his frog prince self revealing exactly what deal he made with the godmother back in the day and his wife still stands by him as love is more than just your appearance. Fiona reinforces that for Shrek by refusing to kiss him till after midnight so they both revert back to their ogre bodies and they jam out on some Ricky Marten and send us packing with a smile on our face.
Just a concise, perfectly paced, wonderfully told tale of love that hilariously sends up Hollywood and fairy tales. It’s a great film for people of all ages and one I can still watch anytime it’s on TV or I’m in the mood for something funny. I can’t believe it’s been seventeen years already since I saw this in theaters. It’s funny how I thought nothing good came out when I was in high school and all my favorite movies were from the nineties and earlier but now as the years have passed and that time of my life has turned to history I’ve realized just how lucky I was to see so many good films in theaters as a teenager.
And Shrek 2 most definitely fits that bill. It has a lot of heart to go along with its witty satire. Hell it was the highest grossing film of that year raking in 928 million off a 150 million budget. Just printing money.
Thanks for reading, if you enjoy these articles be sure to check out the rest of the series here on Medium where I dove into films like Mean Girls, Van Helsing, and Troy, and look forward to the next segment of Does It Hold Up when we dive into the disaster film, The Day After Tomorrow.
Until then, Adventure On!