(reviewed at Ritz 5 on Tuesday, May 15th, 2001 <sneak> with Annie)
In October of 1998 Dreamworks SKG pulled a fast one. The company’s first ever computer animated picture, Antz, was set since the beginning to hit theaters in the Spring of 1999. Disney also had a computer animated bug feature, A Bug’s Life, which was set to be the first computer animated kids bug feature out of the gate when it would open in November of 1998.
Dreamworks, and definitely Jeffrey Katzenberg in general who was fired by the mouse in ’94, declared all of a sudden that Pacific Data Images (PDI) had miraculously finished the picture months ahead of time. Antz would begin showing in October 1998, one month before A Bug’s Life.
This was, for my money, when Dreamworks unofficially declared war on Disney, and Disney’s animation department in general. It is all ready 2001, and Dreamworks has put out The Prince of Egypt, a spectacular animated religious family film, Chicken Run, a claymation film from the creator’s of Wallace & Grommit which was one of the best films of last year, and The Road to El Dorado, a so-so animated buddy family film. Disney has gone on to put out Tarzan, Toy Story 2, Dinosaur, The Emperor’s New Groove, Fantasia 2000 and in June, Atlantis.
But Dreamworks did one thing: it made Disney wake up from its slumber. Not only did they begin to try new things like the computer animated Dinosaur which featured photo-realistic backgrounds (like Shrek), but they also put out a new Fantasia (2000) which was shown on Imax screens across the country, and June’s offering Atlantis features no talking animals (supposedly…this one I don’t buy however) or colorful show tunes.
Disney also tried to create a powerful and serious animated film titled Kingdom of the Sun. What happened to that? Who knows if it really sucked or if Disney was afraid it wouldn’t make any money, but that powerful animated serious film turned into the ludicrously silly Emperor’s New Groove starring the voice of David Spade.
So the summer of 2001 is upon us and upon us once again is another classic animated showdown between Dreamworks and Disney. I all ready mentioned Atlantis, your basic animated Disney flick minus the song and dance numbers.
What about Dreamworks new film?
Shrek is the second PDI computer animated from Dreamworks. It features the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, John Lithgow, and Cameron Diaz. Myers voices a big, green, smelly, ugly ogre who lives alone in a swamp in the woods when he is suddenly faced with an adventure on his hands. Accompanying Shrek on his journey is a talking donkey voiced by Murphy who steals the show with his early 80’s style wisecracks (why isn’t Murphy as funny in his feature films these days?). The other characters include a short villain voiced by Lithgow named Lord Farquaad (yes, this is a children’s movie with a guy named Fuckwad) and a princess voiced by Diaz.
PDI/Dreamworks’ first computer animated film was Antz, which was superior to Shrek but only because it was much more adult-oriented, what with Woody Allen’s neurotic-ness reeking throughout the film and such classic songs as Sinatra’s “High Hopes.” Shrek has a lot of jokes and touches (such as the obvious reference to Disneyworld) that are aimed at adults, but for the most part, kids will enjoy it much more than they did Antz. There are fart jokes and burp jokes and there is off-the-wall zany humor and all in all this is a children’s film.
The best aspect of Shrek however is the animation. Wow. Before the film I caught a trailer for Disney’s Atlantis, and while I’ve always been a stickler for hand-drawn animation, Shrek makes Atlantis look like a rubber ducky vs. a gameboy advance. Shrek looks downright awesome. Yes the humans in the film are a little fake looking, but supposedly in this fairy tale world with ogres and snow white and robin hood and a dragon and what-not, humans are supposed to look a little fake. The moon and the stars, the tall dark castle above a pit of lava, the grass and the trees and Farquaad’s looming castle in the distance. This movie looks awesome…and it’s all from a friggin’ computer!
Shrek also features the most jokes per ratio in a film since the days of Frank Dreb
bin. There is great music and some serious themes and a lot of humor and by the end if you haven’t cracked at least a small smile than you must be related to the Grinch. The only problem I saw was the over the top silliness of the film, which works for children but won’t entirely work for the majority of adults. Still, kids will love it, and it’s highly entertaining and funny and looks downright fabulous. I would not be out of line to think Michal Eisner is shakin’ in his boots. **1/2
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