Shrek is, of course, an animated comedy starring Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, John Lithgow, and Eddie Murphy.
The titular Shrek (Myers) is an ogre who just wants to live in his swamp and eat his rather slimy delicacies, but then a whole horde of fairytale creatures shows up, having been evicted from their own digs by the diminutive and order-obsessed Lord Farquad (Lithgow). Shrek goes to confront him, taking along a talking donkey (Murphy) as a guide/sidekick (guidekick?), but Farquad makes the ogre a deal - go fetch Princess Fiona (Diaz), who has been locked in a tower and is guarded by a dragon, and Farquad will get rid of the creatures and give Shrek his swamp free and clear.
What follows is a quest not only to rescue Fiona from the dragon, but for Shrek to open up and admit that he actually does need company and maybe even love, even as the he (very rightly) points out that other people panic upon seeing an ogre. And of course Donkey falls for the Dragon, Fiona becomes an ogre, all is right with the world.
Weird little movie, this. It's the first winner of the Animated Feature Oscar, it was nominated for Adapted Screenplay, and it premiered at Cannes in 2001. It's a movie about an ogre who farts hard enough to kill fish. Odd? Yeah, but audiences really responded to the somewhat darker humor, the soundtrack including some oddball choices (I remember seeing it in theaters and thinking "ooh, an Eels song, either 'My Beloved Monster' or 'Beautiful Freak', would be perfect and lo and behold), and the spins on the typical Disneyfied fairy tales. The voice cast is on point, and it would be interesting to see the alternate universe version where Chris Farley survived to complete the movie.
It's remarkable how iconically Millennial the movie has become (that is to say, it's become a whole meme), summed up, IMO, by Shrek kicking open his outhouse door as "All Star" starts up. A lot of moments in the movie have become recognizable or even cliche (the use of "Hallelujah" in movies wasn't really a thing pre-Shrek), and the animation and the story hold up just fine, even 20 years later.
The sequels, well...we'll see.
My Grade: A
Rewatch Value: High
Next up: Shrek 2
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