A film review by Sean O’Connell – Copyright 2007 filmcritic.com
I’ve never understood what children see in Shrek. Hardly a role model, the selfish and ornery ogre voiced perfectly by Mike Myers wears a defeated, sour puss only a mother could love. He constantly belittles his best friend, Donkey (Eddie Murphy), and guards his affections for true love Fiona (Cameron Diaz) with well-honed sarcasm.
And yet, the Shrek machine — marketing factions included — makes money hand over fist as the franchise exploits ancient fairy tales children no longer read and spins timely jokes from pop-culture references kids couldn’t hope to understand.
The creative team piloting Shrek’s animated adventures has always aimed over the heads of young audience members in hopes of amusing the parents in the theater. But this latest sequel Shrek the Third abandons kids altogether to invent a marginally paranoid but enjoyable comedy rooted in the psychological terror associated with entering adulthood. Seven credited screenwriters polish a story only parents can appreciate, though most moms and dads will miss half the movie because they’ll be explaining jokes and themes to their befuddled youngsters.
Read the full review from FilmCritic.com — HERE.
Visit the official “Shrek the Third” Website.
It is quite obvious that this reviewer does not have kids. Not only this but is unlikely to be married either. If I wrote something like this, my wife would call me an idiot. Kids don’t like a movie simply because the main character is a role model. They don’t care if the main character is human or even good looking. They simply love being able to escape for a few hours into a world where their parents aren’t telling them to do their home work, where a kid at school isn’t making fun of them, where they dont have to worry about the fact that their parents aren’t as rich as their friends. They can let their imaginations run wild. Kids love princes and princesses, castles, magic, sword fights and worlds where good looks arent as important as personality, morals and intelligence.
I could ask the same question of this critic about why kids like the Simpsons. Are kids befuddled by the adult jokes in the Simpsons? Of course not! They dont even notice them. They are laughing too hard about something stupid that Homer Simpson was doing. All this movie does is make it fun for kids and their parents so that both groups come away thinking that was a fun movie.
This is a long standing issue between parents and “parent associations”. Parent associations say movies like this and books like Harry Potter are wrong for kids because they encourage kids to imagine fantasy worlds. Then, when the child grows up, they discover to their shock that reality is nothing like fantasy and find it difficult to adjust to this realisation. What a load of garbage…
i agree kids should be able to excape real world for a couple of hours for the enjoyment of fairies, monsters, and triumph over evil. however, u don’t add things such as “You are royally….” and then add a ship horn to block the F word. In a kids movie, you don’t immitate high school kids getting high, like they do in Shrek the Third. Also, in kid movies, you don’t trouble their minds with things pertaining to sex. The really young kids who watch this show don’t undertsand what Puss in Boots means when he says “when a man has this powerful urge” or however Puss put it. These are funny jokes that should be put in movies made for young adults or older. Even if that’s the audience this movie was meant for, it is advertized for kid all over the place. Selling childeren’s toys that are Shrek figures and such. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But you are advertizing a movie to kids that contains adult jokes. Because when a kid turns to their mother and says “Mom, what was Puss in Boots saying when the boat honked?” that’s a bad sign. Kids pick up these things. A kid shouldn’t be blocked from the everyday-life things, but when they’re as young as some of these Shrek fans, they need to tought the positives first. And when the kids ask there mom “Mom, what were those guys doing in the smoky van?” is the mom supposed to say “They were getting high, sweetie.”???? or make up some crap like “They were playing a good old card game of Go Fish.” This was no doubt a wonderful movie full of laughs and a great life lesson. However, if kids watch it, dont add adult jokes. If i was a parent, i probably would have walked out of the theatre with my children, went to wal-Mart and bought them a good movie i approved of that was accually good for little kids. I, myself, enjoyed the movie. But kids should learn about this stuff till later. Let them be kids first.