Andrew Adamson
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Yet at the same time, Shrek! also remains rife with elements borrowed from other less traditional fantasy films, softly resounding with themes and elements from classic films such as “The Princess Bride” and “The Never Ending Story.”
The way the story takes a funny angle on classic fairy tales reminds me a little of "The Princess Bride."
In the quirky, irreverent way that it views fairy tales and their conventions, it's not unlike The Princess Bride .
They've genericized an already simple plotline while heavily under the influence of William Goldman's "The Princess Bride."
Loosely based upon a story by children’s author William Steig (Sylvester and the Magic Pebble), Shrek is a satiric, updated fairy-tale love story, sort of like The Princess Bride , if André the Giant had been the hero, and had worn Lou Ferrigno body paint.
While the multiple directors (Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson) and writers seem to be aiming for a tone similar to the post-modern "The Princess Bride," "Shrek" flies in too many directions at once, particularly over its first half.
"Ella Enchanted" the movie is an overcalculated fusion of "Shrek" and "The Princess Bride" with all the smarts replaced by smartass.
All are elements shared by "Shrek" and the new movie "Ella Enchanted," a warm-hearted but unbalanced star vehicle for Anne Hathaway that unashamedly wears its influences on its screen.
The context for these activities is lifted in equal parts from Cinderella, Shrek, and The Princess Bride, with seemingly general inspiration from The Bullwinkle Show's beloved "Fractured Fairy Tales."
Adapted from a novel by Gail Carson Levine, the story borrows a page from "Shrek" in turning fairy-tale conventions inside out.
Elwes apparently doesn’t understand that even as a goofball villain – like John Lithgow’s tour-de-force as Lord Farquaad in “Shrek” – has to be approached in a serious manner.
This anachronistic Cinderella with a twist displays the same warped humor and fairy tale awareness of "Shrek."
Despite the outlandish success of the “Shrek” movies, there’s often a sad, also-ran vibe to DreamWorks’ animated movies.
The company’s animation output has hitherto been of the Shrek model: packed with tiresomely knowing pop cultural references that jar you out of the story every five minutes like an elbow to the ribs.
But it is an especially nice touch in the dragon tale itself, which is both heartwarming and heartfelt, a significant departure from the pop culture saturated sarcasm that had become something of a DreamWorks Animation staple à la “Shrek.”
But even if Dragon leads with its visuals, be glad that Dreamworks has largely moved away from the inane pop-culture referencing and wiseass temperament that marked the Shrek films.
There's no compulsion to break into impromptu karaoke or drop jokey pop-culture references, the way DreamWorks' "Shrek" franchise and its many imitators have done.
This animated film from the DreamWorks stable (Shrek, How to Train Your Dragon) is not as funny as Despicable Me and not even in the same intergalactic solar system as The Incredibles.
The incipient promise of Dragon was given a savage beating by Shrek Forever After , but that was to be expected from a Shrek picture; it's only now that the corpse of the very short DreamWorks Renaissance has been officially embalmed with Megamind , the rare kind of motion picture which not only puts all of its funniest stuff in the trailer, but in which that same funny stuff is actually less successful, given its proper context.
And children's films lately have been playing to that notion by centering on figures usually typecast as bad guys — a rat in Ratatouille, an ogre in Shrek, a criminal mastermind in Despicable Me.
"Megamind," though, is by no means a knockoff, and if you get past the eerie coincidences (characters named Minion, the lead's mangled diction), you see that it stakes out different territory, playing around with superhero mythology (especially Superman) in much the same way as "Shrek" poked fun at fairytales.
Luckily, kids have short memories, but it's still no sure bet they'll respond to the latest animated entry in the post-ironic Shrek vein.
On the plus side, the movie takes itself seriously and doesn’t try to distract its audience with pop culture references that wouldn’t exist in the story’s universe (like the “Shrek” movies).
Though the dialogue is contemporary (and often very funny), it avoids pop culture references and contemporary in-jokes of the Shrek variety.
Blessedly free of the smarmy pop-cultural references of Dreamworks Animation Studios' 2004 release " Shark Tale " and their by-now-long-in-the-tooth " Shrek " series, "Kung Fu Panda" is a snappy, amusingly witty family comedy.
The near genius of the film—big-name stars doing voices to one side—is that it almost completely eschews the snarky postmodern, pop-culture-referencing sensibility that seemed pretty fresh and cheeky when Shrek (2001) first appeared on the scene, but now looks more tired and desperate than a dateless working girl at last call in a dive bar.
After a series of animated features ranging from dull to dismal (the Shrek series, Madagascar , Flushed Away , etc.), Dreamworks cooks up their first good film since Antz (1998).
(After all, it's the place that teamed Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese in "Shark Tale" and loaded the "Shrek" franchise with the dulcet tones of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz and Antonio Banderas.)
But there’s a world of difference between the savvy nature of Rango and the snarky post-modern pop-culture referencing that more or less began with Shrek (2001).
Gore Verbinski's latest is called Rango, and it may be one of the most wonderfully subversive feature-length animated flicks since the original Shrek.
These aren’t Shrek-like pop-culture references, but more Verbinski’s homage to other filmmakers, which gives Rango an eccentric personal quality.
After a while, as they did in the “Shrek” sequels, the in-jokes and double entendres become enervating.
It’s a billon times better than any Shrek, more fun than a barrel of minions, and actually does something that’s rare in cartooning - it compares more than favorably with the live action version of its source…and all because Verbinski has his crew decided to stay true to the story and the characters first, and hope that the audience agrees with its implicit quirk.
The film began life simply enough, as yet another of Jeffrey Katzenberg's "fuck you so hard" gestures to his old boss and nemesis Michael Eisner; their rivalry fueled the creation of the animation studio that Katzenberg had tried to use to out-Disney Disney, beginning with 1998's dramatic musical The Prince of Egypt , DreamWorks' second feature (their first, Antz from earlier in the same year was a more petulant but also lower-key "fuck you" to Disney's handmaidens at Pixar).
It began in 1998, when Disney released ''A Bug's Life'' and DreamWorks came out with ''Antz,'' two movies that were nearly identical in their looks and themes.
According to the press materials, “Shrek” avails itself of a DreamWorks “proprietary” facial animation system (first used in “Antz” ) that uses a layering process to build the image of a character’s face, starting with the skull and then gradually adding computer re-creations of muscles and skin.
The second computer-generated animated film from Dreamworks (with the first being the disappointing 1998 movie, "Antz"), "Shrek" is a dazzling display of creative artistry and sheer imagination.
The look of the film will be familiar to anyone who's seen the Toy Story movies, Antz or A Bug's Life, but Shrek does qualify as the first digitally animated movie to feature a large number of humans, who unfortunately still move with the stiffness of video game characters.
While computer animation has proven useful in rendering strange creatures in previous movies, such as Antz, it always seemed to falter when it came to portraying realistic humans.
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019)
Directed by Dean DeBlois
influenced by Shrek (2001)
Characters
Both the original and follow-up sequel earned Academy Award nominations for best animated feature – a feat only matched by Shrek and Kung Fu Panda since the category was created back in 2001.
Whether it’s talking donkeys in “Shrek” or dancing penguins in “Madagascar,” (smile and wave boys, smile and wave), the studio has always had a fire in its belly when it comes to characterization.
So, although “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” may be the third film in DreamWorks’ series, in many ways, it’s a first: After getting the greenlight to continue the saga, writer-director Dean DeBlois conceived installments two and three together, constructing a trilogy that enriches the original while also serving to entertain newcomers who know none of the backstory — and that’s key, considering that box office dipped nearly 20% between “How to Train Your Dragon” (DWA’s most successful non-“Shrek” feature) and its sequel, and the studio needs to regain some of that audience this time around.
I'm referring to a familiar set of qualities developed during the Disney renaissance of the late '80s and early '90s, and perfected, if that is the word, by the " Shrek " series, and movies in a "Shrek"-like vein.
It’s a problem that increasingly seems to be systemic to DreamWorks’ animated films as the studio struggles to take the formula that made “Shrek” such a success in 2001 and play it forward.
Another “Shrek”-like offering from DreamWorks Animation, “Mr.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018)
Directed by Lasse Hallström
influenced by The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
Visuals Themes Plot
Even when Clara stares in wonder at the Realms for the first time, it's reminiscent of a similar scene in “The Chronicles of Narnia” that was done far better.
The whole experience is all over the place; I’d estimate that the 100-minute runtime was about 25 minutes boring exposition, 45 minutes of decent Narnia / Hugo -esque fantasy adventure, 10 minutes of ethereal dancing, and 20 minutes of pure nightmare fuel.
It’s a hodgepodge, a beloved holiday musical based on a musty book from 1816; a shoehorned ballet performance; fantasy elements that feel drawn from a variety of other sources, including The Chronicles of Narnia , The Wizard of Oz , Alice in Wonderland and Babes in Toyland .
Loosely based on the story “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” by E.T.A. Hoffmann and incorporating more than a dash of C.S. Lewis’ “Narnia” tales, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms seeks to fashion a fantasy-based fairy tale for modern audiences.
Instead, she’s chewed up and spit out by the film’s generic fantasy-adventure plot, which includes elements of the Harry Potter series, The Chronicles Of Narnia , and Alice In Wonderland and involves a war between the four realms that only Clara can solve.
For adults who’ve already seen The Chronicles of Narnia movies or Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland , however, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms feels more like a re-gifted Christmas present.
More derivative than you expect from DreamWorks, which has delivered originals like Shrek, How to Train a Dragon and Kung Fu Panda, Home borrows from alien/child buddy movies such as E.T. and Lilo and Stitch, and hits hard the message that no matter how unique (read: quirky misfit) you are, there's a home for all of us.
Before donning cheap plastic 3-D glasses was considered de rigueur and when artists still prided themselves on drawing images by hand, Disney made a brave move and released the two-dimensional “Lilo & Stitch” in 2002—just as the computerized revolution that began with “ Toy Story ” and continued with “ Shrek ” and “ Ice Age ” was about to make such non-CG cartoon titles nearly obsolete.
The character design is a bit questionable, particularly the humans, but humans have been the Achilles' heel of DreamWorks/PDI animated features for as long as they've existed, and the ones in Home are no more stiff and soullessly robotic than the ones in Megamind or Turbo , and quite a great deal less so than the shuffling corpses of the Shrek films.
Home , the latest animated feature from Dreamworks Animation, producers of the Shrek , Madagascar , and How to Train Your Dragon franchises, might seem at first a rather bland kids' movie.
“Home” should rack up decent box-office coin but the question of repeat business, which is how DreamWorks built its studio with “Shrek” and “How to Train Your Dragon,” is uncertain.
Hope and Glory (1987)
Directed by John Boorman
influenced The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
Plot
Based on Lewis’ beloved 1950 novel and adapted to the screen by Ann Peacock, Adamson, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (“The Life and Death of Peter Sellers”), “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” begins like John Boorman’s marvelous 1987 memoir “Hope and Glory” in London during the Blitz, an event only referred to in passing in the book.
With films like “Shrek”, and now this, their studio really breeds films that are hit or miss (Shrek 2, A Shark Tale).
You have to give credit where credit is due: Under the helm of co-directors Tim Johnson and Karey Kirkpatrick, a lot of people clearly worked very hard on this film with the aid of technology that's come a long way even since the original "Shrek" from 2001.
This scene alone is worth the price of admission, but Over the Hedge is so consistently hilarious and polished that it can be grouped with the likes of Shrek.
While not quite up to par with the eye-popping visuals of the Pixar films (although it's still quite good and certainly light years ahead of some of this year's other animated offerings) and not really containing anything resembling a complex story (this one's geared for a slightly younger crowd than played to the likes of "Shrek" or "The Incredibles"), the film more than makes up for such shortcomings with its copious, fine details.
We have seen it all before, the likes of Shrek, Ice Age, and most recently the subtly successful Hoodwinked.
This has to be Dreamworks Animation's finest work since the likes of How To Train Your Dragon and the early Shrek films.
At one time not all that long ago, Dreamworks Animation was churning out such exciting, well-loved projects as Shrek and How to Train Your Dragon.
Based on the children's book series of the same name by Aaron Blabey, The Bad Guys is DreamWorks’ latest addition to its animated slate and another movie that could have major franchise potential for the studio behind the likes of Shrek and Trolls .
Similar to how Shrek elevated the fairy tale and Kung Fu Panda the kung fu subsect, Pierre Perifel‘s crime caper has a lot of fun playing into the stereotypes we expect from such a genre, pilfering them just so, and layering it with a universal brand of comedy that hopefully allows these Bad Guys to continue on.
The animation is gorgeous to the eye, while the vocal work is excellent, with Hart probably having the most fun as the diminutive but militant, chatterbox rabbit (who, if the species matched, would be some distant but angrier relative to Eddie Murphy's Donkey from the "Shrek" movies).
Kevin Hart voices the precious-but-vicious little furball — another choice casting that’s solid, but not as unexpected as, say, Antonio Banderas playing Puss in Boots in the “Shrek” movies.
It follows in the wake of, and borrows liberally from both of 2001's blockbusters, Shrek and Monsters Inc.
I laughed more at "Ice Age" than at "Shrek" and "Monsters Inc." combined.
There�s an upside to this approach, however � it�s not as inventive as Shrek, and it lacks the depth of the incomparable Toy Story, but it harks back to simpler times, when you could enjoy a well-crafted bedtime story without having to worry about where your next in-joke was coming from.
They're obviously recycling Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, or Shrek's Donkey and Shrek (Eddie Murphy and Mike Myers), or Mike and Sully (Billy Crystal and John Goodman) in Monsters Inc., and so on, only their skins and shapes are different.
While it may not achieve the ‘CGI classic’ status that was earned by movies like Shrek , Toy Story and Monsters Inc ., Fox Animation’s Ice Age is nonetheless a pleasantly diverting and quite amusing family flick.
That, in a nutshell, is the template for last year’s two computer-animated blockbusters, Monsters, Inc. and Shrek; and now it applies also to Chris Wedge’s Ice Age — the first feature-length film from 20th Century Fox acquisition Blue Sky Studios (which was also responsible for Wedge’s Oscar-winning animated short Bunny).
It began in 1998, when Disney released ''A Bug's Life'' and DreamWorks came out with ''Antz,'' two movies that were nearly identical in their looks and themes.
The look of the film will be familiar to anyone who's seen the Toy Story movies, Antz or A Bug's Life, but Shrek does qualify as the first digitally animated movie to feature a large number of humans, who unfortunately still move with the stiffness of video game characters.
Here at least, if nowhere else, Shrek readily surpasses the Toy Story movies, as well as Antz (which it surpasses in other ways also) and Pixar’s A Bug’s Life (which is probably otherwise about its equal).
It also temporarily takes the mantle of best-looking, all-CGI animated feature, surpassing the likes of Toy Story and A Bug’s Life in the appearance category.
Although it reportedly makes technological advances in the art of computer animation, "Shrek" isn't nearly as visually pleasing as the Pixar/Disney collaborations (the "Toy Story" duo, "A Bug's Life").
In 1999 Katzenberg (now sitting pretty as the K in DreamWorks SKG, with new partners Steven Spielberg and David Geffen) won a long-in-the-courts $250 million suit against Disney for breach of contract, and just the year before that, the studios released dueling bug-movies, DreamWorks’s Ants and Disney’s A Bug’s Life.
Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Directed by Tim Burton
influenced by The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
Themes Visuals Plot
Burton invokes the same themes of “The Chronicles of Narnia” where a youth who hasn’t lost touch with the magic is the only thing that stands between good and evil while also getting in touch with her warrior-like persona.
There are reminders of Edward Scissorhands , Beetlejuice , Sleepy Hollow and Sweeney Todd in the film, along with many hat tips to the fantasy tales Burton has long admired: The Wizard of Oz , The Lord of The Rings , The Chronicles of Narnia and many others.
This was Burton's chance to invent a new world and he gave us "Lord of the Rings" meets "Titanic" and "The Chronicles of Narnia," but without their depth and power.
In his hands, "Alice in Wonderland" becomes a little darker and a little closer to the Middle Kingdom and "Narnia"-style other-world sagas, in which a good queen has been supplanted by an evil one, and a chosen one that the oppressed have been awaiting may or may not have finally arrived.
? and the film builds to a CGI battle that might have come out of a lesser Narnia sequel.
This is nothing like the Lewis Carroll novels and highly derivative of the "Harry Potter" and "The Chronicles of Narnia" series', but for a few fleeting minutes the fantasy portion of the movie energizes itself and all aspects of production come together as they should have all along.
Pan (2015)
Directed by Joe Wright
influenced by The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
Visuals
Pan rifles through too many literary and cinematic influences, borrowing from Terry Gilliam’s oeuvre, The Chronicles Of Narnia and The Buccaneer , but it never quite manages to thread these things together convincingly enough to entirely pull it off.
The opening of Wright’s take on the now classic Peter Pan story owes a lot to Andrew Adamson’s Narnia films and The Wizard of Oz, positing a slate grey world full of bombs and misery which will soon give way to land of wild color and wilder lunacy.
As visually arresting as "Surf's Up" is, it's the story -- refreshingly devoid of snarky "Shrek"-like pop culture references -- and the characters that make it come to life.
Far from condemning it as the next Shrek , though, I'd say the worst thing about Surf's Up is that it's clever enough to leave you expecting more--and inoffensive enough (unless scenes of a primitive tribe of cannibal penguins can somehow be traced back to Native-fear flicks or intolerance towards Polynesians) to leave you wishing some of the "nuggets" its anachronistic Chicken Joe (Jon Heder, in the first performance of his career that didn't leave me wanting to punch his mother) mentions were in more obvious display in the filmmakers.
In the process, they deliver the kind of wit we had hoped for from Shrek the Third but didn't get.