Film review: Shrek 2 Dementedly hilarious!

When was the last time you saw a thong-wearing Pinocchio trying to rescue an ogre? That’s Shrek 2 for you–dementedly hilarious.

Capitalizing on the box-office and critical success (by way of an Oscar imprimatur, among other awards) of the first Shrek, Dreamworks reunites the original cast and tosses in a couple more memorable characters for another run both fun and profitable.

And what a run it is.

Five minutes longer than its predecessor, Shrek 2 commands your attention even more with its snappy, quirky characters voiced by a marquee cast of actors. The screenplay traipses by quickly without overstaying its welcome, and the funny dialogue is a perfect marriage to the jaw-dropping computer animation.

Many Hollywood franchises-to-be were doomed by uninspired sequels (think Final Destination, a doubly-doomed slash-and-dice movie if there ever was one). However, Shrek 2 delights and succeeds in refusing to rest on its laurels, as well as refusing to take itself seriously. While the first movie was an Oster-ized hero-and-princess story, the second adds a Meet the Parents morsel into the stew and ladles in a whole packet of fairytale sauce and some Simpsons inspiration.

Think of it this way: when a talking donkey has babies with a dragon, you know something’s awfully weird.

Even the choice of villains is reflective of how original (read: twisted) Shrek 2 strives to be. I mean, can you imagine the patroness of wishes, the Fairy Godmother, depicted as a scheming b___? And Prince Charming himself is portrayed as a vainglorious mama’s boy.

We catch up with our green hero (voiced by Mike Myers) working on "happily ever after" with the missus, the equally green Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz). But things start to get testy when the two are summoned by Fiona’s parents from Far Far Away (that’s the name of the kingdom), King Harold (John Cleese) and Queen Lillian (Julie Andrews). The two are predictably aghast at their daughter’s marriage to an ogre. Equally disturbed is the Fairy Godmother (Jennifer Saunders), who sees Shrek as a wrench in her well-contrived plan of wedding her son Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) to Fiona. Of course, she concocts an evil plan (is there any other?) that would push Shrek out of the picture. Ah, but Shrek is armed with a full array of fairytale-character friends, who help him reach an inevitable, irrevocable, happy conclusion.

But not to worry; the way from Point A to B is littered with loads of fun. The screenwriters explore the rich wealth of fairytale characters at their disposal and create a mad mélange of virtual "homies" for Shrek. Puss-In-Boots (Antonio Banderas) is a riotous second sidekick that gives Donkey (Eddie Murphy) a run for his money. Check out the rip-roaring rescue sequence that has Pinocchio, The Three Blind Mice, the Three Little Pigs, the Big Bad Wolf and Gingerbread Man playing crucial parts — as opposed to just hanging around housesitting for Shrek’s swamp home.

Even when the Fairy Godmother breaks into song, it isn’t long and sappy to kill the satirical air (speaking of which, watch for Shrek and Fiona’s classic fart scene in the mudbath).

A week into its release, the royal ogres have raked in nearly $130 million, beating out the buffed bods of runner up Troy by more than $40 million. With the box-office success of Finding Nemo last year, the notion that cartoons are spanking the butt of flesh-and-blood actors is indeed, pardon the pun, no fairy tale. Now that’s good news for ogres.