#57: Shrek

Release Date: May 18th, 2001

Format: Streaming (Netflix)

Written by: Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Roger S.H. Schulman, and Joe Stillman

Directed by: Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson

3.5 Stars

Shrek was a phenomenon when it came out in 2001, just four months before 9/11. At the time it was this wickedly funny, but sweet, anti-fairy tale. I hadn’t seen Shrek in years, and I still found it to be funny and sweet.

One of the things that’s been sort of lost over time is just how radical it was that Dreamworks was releasing a big budget CGI-animated feature film. Now we’re used to major studios from all over the globe getting their animated features in wide release in the United States, but in 2001, the US box office had been dominated by Disney for the past 70 years. It wasn’t until Toy Story in 1995 that mainstream US audiences were exposed to feature film animation that threatened Disney’s position at the top of the hill.

And Toy Story marked a seismic shift in the industry. It was fresh and innovative. The writing was more nuanced than a standard Disney movie. It was funnier. Adults liked it as much as their kids. It was just…better. 

When Shrek came around 6 years later, mainstream audiences had an even greater appetite for “not Disney” animated feature films. Today I think some of the subversive humor of Shrek has lost its bite (in the +20 years since its release, a flood of animated films have attempted to capture Shrek’s defiant, playful tone). But Shrek is hardly toothless in 2024. 

I love the scene where Shrek and Princess Fiona start to fall in love, and they blow up a snake and a toad into balloon animals that they carry with them on their stroll through a forest. I think that perfectly captures the special quality of this movie, and it’s something that Disney couldn’t do in a million years. Or Pixar, for that matter. They are too bound to their individual tonal milieus.  

But for Shrek, wouldn’t it be funny if right before they run across a meadow chasing each other, they just release the snake and the toad to float off screen, into the sky? 

Would this be too heartless for kids? Is it too cruel? 

No. It’s the type of meaningless, anti-establishment humor that audiences wanted pre-9/11. A beautiful princess in a tower? I guess. But we’d rather have ogres with layers.