Great for young and old, original, funny, and just a great
animated movie! Watch it, you'll love it too!

First of all, I cannot believe that the makers would allow Princess Fiona to marry a cannibal - Shrek ate human eyeballs for supper at the beginning of the movie - I guess he got them from villagers he scalped. In my opinion, the main reason Shrek is hated is not because he is ugly - he is hated because he is a cannibal. After all, those villagers did, "Careful, now. He'll grind your bones to make his bread."

Here are some upsetting quotes.

"Actually, that would be a giant. Now, ogres, whoah, they're much worse. They'll peel your skin and make a soup out of it. Why they'll squeeze the jelly from your eyeballs. Actually, it's quite good on toast."

Not very funny, Shrek. If you enjoy this disgusting humour, you should be ashamed of yourself for denouncing the rest of mankind.

And what else? Take this.

"I'll decapitate a whole village, get a knife, cut open their spleens, and drink their fluids. Do you like the sound of that?"

Um...no, and I was actually upset that this movie would make talking about such things, let alone, carrying them out, look like it's 'funny' and even 'OK'. Or, in other words, glorify such matters.

I would've liked the movie without that. That took away one-star.

The conflict is quite original in the new cinematic age we now live in, and I give it five stars.

The characters are well-developed, and I give them five stars.

The plot could've been better. It was actually very predictible. Shrek is a lone ogre. One day, Shrek finds the Lord Farquaad has forced all fairy tale creatures onto his land. Naturally, he goes to complain. So Farquaad makes a deal with him. Shrek rescues the princess for Farqaad to marry, and so the plan gets carried out. On the way, Shrek and the princess find that they're falling in love. And so somehow Fiona leaves Farquaad at the altar, and marries Shrek. My rating: three stars.

This movie has a great message, and I like it. But somehow, in my humble opinion, that message gets 'twisted'. The moral is that it's inner beauty that counts. Then, why, for some bad reason, are the 'good' characters only mocking the UGLY (despite the fact we're trying to break the classic stereotype of bad guy is ugly) Lord Farquaad for his small size, rather than his thoughtlessness? I really wished DreamWorks had used a real Prince Charming as an antagonist instead of some ugly lord to illustrate their point. Three stars.

The animation is a five-star top notch performance.

Overall, I don't reccomend buying this DVD. It was interesting the first time around, but gets boring after you watch the movie three times.

The only really impressive features on the DVD are the 'Making Of, Deleted Scenes, and Shrek's Music Room'. It features several horrible games like 'Magic Mirror', where you ask a question, and the mirrir PRETENDS to answer you, most of the time being completely wrong. Those games are NOT meant to be played, but ratehr to put people to sleep with boredom.

Do yourself a favour, and rent this DVD instead of buying it. Fall asleep after the third watching it. You'll be glad you did.

Los Tres Cochinitos bailando Breakdance. Pinocchio vendido por Gepetto. Cenicienta y Blancanieves peléandose por el bouquet de la novia. Los 7 enanos en una banda de rock. ¿Pueden imaginarse una historia tan descabellada?

No se trata de una pesadilla. Es Shrek, una nueva y maravillosa cinta animada que, entre sus muchas sorpresas, se burla de los cuentos clásicos de hadas.

La película nos presenta con ingenio una historia similar a la del Patito Feo, pero en este caso, el protagonista es un ogro verde que vive en un pantano y usa la cera de sus oídos para iluminar su mesa.

Cercano al hogar de Shrek, está el Reino Mágico de Duloc, donde Lord Farquaad destierra a todos los personajes de los cuentos de hadas, enviándolos al pantano del ogro. A partir de ese momento, un burro que no para de hablar se convierte en el amigo inseparable de Shrek, quien llega a un acuerdo con Lord Farquaad para recuperar su hogar y decide rescatar a la princesa Fiona, atrapada en un castillo lejano custodiado por un dragón, para que Farquaad pueda casarse con ella.

Pero en esta historia, el ogro será el héroe, el burro el noble corcél, el príncipe un villano con complejo napoleónico y la princesa una experta en artes marciales con un secreto inimaginable.

No hay nada dulce o color rosa en Shrek, una fabulosa parodia de los cuentos de hadas y los personajes que abundan en ella. La cinta entretiene a todo el mundo y no tiene piedad de nadie, mientras sus diálogos derrochan referencias de la cultura moderna que los adultos disfrutarán enormemente. La Macarena, Riverdance, The Matrix, todos tienen su momento estelar en Shrek.

En el corazón del film está su protagonista, una bestia que no es tan fea como él piensa y cuyo miedo al rechazo está enmascarado con malhumor y soledad.

La animación es más que extraordinaria, particularmente las detalladas expresiones faciales y las texturas de las pieles. Pero la mejor animación no habría hecho de Shrek un éxito sin la historia tan fresca y original que nos presenta.

El mensaje que la película nos ofrece es eterno y verdadero: no debemos juzgar a las personas por su apariencia, pues como las cebollas, todos los seres humanos tenemos muchas capas. En cada persona hay mucho más que lo que se ve en la superficie. No se puede determinar lo que hay en el corazón de otras personas con solo mirarlas.

Incluso un ogro como Shrek, que se privó del contacto con otras criaturas, tenía -en el fondo- un deseo reprimido por encontrar compañía y amistad. Todos lo tenemos.

Man, I feel like Rip Van Winkle after watching "Shrek." Let me explain. I rarely watch animated shows, let alone animated movies, so I was totally unaware of how much they've changed in the last ten or fifteen years. The only reason I popped "Shrek" into the DVD player was because I stumbled over a website that said this film earned a place in the list of all time top ten grossing movies. I couldn't believe that claim, considering it's an animated feature, so curiosity forced my hand. All I can say after seeing this DreamWorks production is WOW! When did they start using CGI for animated features? Moreover, when did they start using CGI to such great effect? I'm not totally ignorant, by the way. I'm aware that some animated films look like what I saw in "Shrek" since I've seen advertisements and stills from movies like "Toy Story," but I had no idea of the depth involved in every frame of the movie. Most of the films I've seen with heavy CGI usually contain one or two scenes where the effects look simply awful or fail because the script puts the plot and characters on the backburner so as to make room for the computerized images. Not so in this movie: everything we see is a computer-generated effect and the characters stand front and center.

Shrek is, of course, a large green ogre with huge teeth and cone shaped ears voiced by the incomparable Mike Myers. When we first meet up with this lovable rogue he's hanging up no trespassing signs on the outskirts of his beloved swamp. Shrek likes his privacy because...well, he's an ogre and ogres need their privacy. Why would anyone want to hang around with an ogre anyway? They're ugly, crass, and mean. If the movie is any indication, they also like to bath in muck and offal. Fun. Nonetheless, Shrek soon discovers that faraway events threaten his self-imposed exile. The diminutive and evil Lord Farquaad (voiced by John Lithgow), in his evil way, issued an edict ordering the deportation of all the fairytale creatures from his domain. What a jerk! He sends the seven dwarfs, Pinocchio, a gingerbread man, and assorted other lovable creatures out into the cold, heartless world. The only place left to these poor wretches is, predictably, Shrek's swamp. The ogre opens his front door to find literally hundreds of talking animals, beasties big and small, and assorted magical creations slumming about the swamp. Enraged, Shrek embarks on a mission to Lord Farquaad's palace with the aim of obtaining the deed to his property. He takes along with him the talking Donkey (voiced by Eddie Murphy) as his sole companion.

Farquaad isn't one to cave into demands lightly, however, as Shrek and Donkey soon discover. The evil nobleman wishes to acquire a princess as his bride, and he promises to deliver the deed into Shrek's hands if the ogre will procure this woman for him. The woman in question is Fiona (Cameron Diaz), a beautiful young lady imprisoned in an imposing castle watched over by a fire-breathing dragon. Shrek and Donkey accept their mission and soon liberate Fiona from her prison, but things don't go quite right from this point forward. Shrek grows fond of the imaginative Fiona, and she of him, but their physical forms seem to prohibit any possible romantic union. After all, how can an ogre ever hope to marry a human princess? Well, in the fairytale world people aren't always as they seem. Fiona harbors an intriguing secret that would astound Shrek if he knew the truth, but Farquaad enters the picture before the ogre learns what's going on. Will Fiona marry the evil Farquaad and live unhappily ever after? Will Shrek muster up the courage necessary to rescue his beloved from the evil lord? Most importantly, will the ogre take Fiona with him back to the swamp so the two can share his cherished privacy? You ought to know the answers to these questions before the film even starts, but seeing how everything turns out is the fun part.

"Shrek" is quite possibly the most enjoyable animated feature, television or movie, that I've ever seen. The secret to its success is difficult to summarize adequately in a mere paragraph. First, the voiceovers are wonderfully full of energy and emotion. Moreover, the animators made sure to craft the main characters so that they look like their actor counterparts, i.e. Shrek looks like Mike Myers, Donkey resembles Eddie Murphy, and so on. Second, the CGI effects are incredibly detailed, so much so that it's almost frighteningly realistic. Third, "Shrek" is contemporary while staying true to the old fairytale form. From the music by Smashmouth to the pop culture references to the multifaceted dialogue, modern audiences ought to find much to appreciate here. Speaking of the dialogue, I couldn't believe some of the stuff that came out of these characters' mouths. The part where Shrek points out Lord Farquaad's huge castle and says, "You think he's trying to compensate for something?" is absolutely hilarious. I couldn't believe he said it in what is essentially a cartoon. The movie's loaded with great double entendres that little kids won't likely understand but will keep adults engaged.

I'm not even going to get into the extras on the disc except to say there's some great stuff here that takes hours to watch. My favorite supplements included a look at Myers, Diaz, Lithgow, and Murphy doing the voiceover work and the behind the scenes stuff describing how the animators performed their computerized magic. I can't believe I waited this long to watch such a fantastic film. Sadly, the sequel isn't as good due in large part to an overemphasis on the pop references and adult humor.

My one-year-old grandson has watched Shrek about 300 times and loves it - won't watch anything else, including Shrek 2. The animation just amazes me. I remember seeing Sleeping Beauty in a movie theater when it first came out and being floored by the realistic movement of the cartoon characters, having thus far in my childhood seen only jumpy, jerky animation (remember Steamboat Willie? Popeye? Felix the Cat?) Even though comparison is unfair between pre- and post-computer animation, I'm still impressed. Having said that, now comes the big BUT.....I take great exception to the language and adult inuendo in the cartoon. I never thought to screen a cartoon for bad language, but if I had I never would have let my grandson get so attached to Shrek. Now I have to figure out how to wean him away from it before he tells me, "that's the talkingest d--- donkey I've ever seen." What a shame.