Get On, Clip In, Fall Off

I took some magic potion.. and now I'm SEXY!

I braved the Wimbledon Odeon today to see one of this weekend's paid previews of - hurrah - Shrek 2, about to be released in the UK about a decade after the US release. The 12:15 screening was only about half full, which meant that although it was full of ten-year-olds going rustle rustle rustle I could flee down to the empty front row so the rustling was only faint white noise behind me rather than in full-on living Dolby Digital surround sound. The film also started 5 minutes late, which is about par for the course for the Wimbledon Odeon and a major improvement on the time when after 15 minutes of waiting for the lights to go down I had to argue with the person on the door to get them to start the film at all.

But - ah! - it was worth the wait, and even worth putting up with a cinema full of rustling brats to watch. The first laugh-out-loud visual gag came about 30 seconds in and they kept coming all the way through. There was possibly slightly less of the gross humour of the original movie, but that was easily compensated for by the addition of the fantastic riffing between Eddie Murphy's Donkey and Antonio Banderas' oh-so,er,"cute" Puss in Boots as they competed to steal the show (Donkey won, naturally). The attention to detail and barrage of sight gags and sideways cultural references that made the original stand out (remember Fiona's kung fu display?) is as good in the sequel as in the original - no lazy writing or cash-in sequelitis here. The attention to detail extends all the way to a few of the cultural references in the film having been localised for the UK audience who, while they most likely won't know who Joan Rivers is (I certainly didn't), will know who Jonathan Ross is.

Some reviewers seem to have objected to Shrek 2 not having much in the way of subtle nuance and depth of plot. I think that if you want subtle nuance and depth of plot you're probably making a mistake by choosing to see this film, but if you just want to spend another happy hour and a half in the company of Shrek, Donkey and some of the finest fart gags money can buy then go and see it immediately when it opens next Friday. Oh yes, and keep an eye out for the appearance of the corniest joke in history during the bar scene near the end.

For those who care about credit cookies - there's one additional scene a short way into the credits, but that's it apart from a couple of extra credit slides added at the very end for the UK-specific bits.