Malaya and I saw Shrek 2 Thursday afternoon, after much anticipation on both our parts. We liked it, but I don't think either of us thought it was the equal of the first film. Incidentally, if you see Shrek 2, be sure you sit through the first 3 or 4 minutes of the credits, since there's one last scene from the movie in the middle of them, and it is by far the funniest thing in the entire movie.  I laughed so hard I was sobbing, and that was my only real belly laugh in the entire film.

All the while Malaya was sitting next to me with a perplexed look on her face, saying, "Um... I'm not sure I like this... Um..." which just made it that much funnier, to me. Most of the audience had left by then, and I didn't hear anyone else laughing that hard, so maybe it just struck me funny, but I'd almost pay to see the movie again just for that one scene.  In fact, I'm laughing out loud right now, just thinking about it. That scene probably raised my score a full point for the film, at least for the comedy category.

My quick score for Shrek and Shrek 2, side by side for easy comparison. The Shrek score is skewed by seeing it on DVD several times since the original movie viewing, and appreciating the emotional aspects of the first film more, now that I'm in love myself.

I'm surprised my Shrek 1 scores are that high, since I hadn't really thought about how much I enjoy that movie until now. Most of my higher Shrek 1 scores are simply due to Shrek 2 doing cool things, but they're cool things we've already seen in Shrek 1. I'll discuss these scores a bit below, and there will be some minor spoilers.

Script/Story: Shrek 2 is basically a repeat of the first movie. Shrek's an ogre, Fiona's a human, can they get along happily; can Fiona stand being an ogre, will a human prince win her heart instead, can their love survive the interference of evil humans. There are tons of minor clever things in Shrek 2, but that was true of the first film as well.

Acting: Well, it's computer graphics, not real actors, but you know what I mean. It was better in Shrek 1, which had more interesting minor characters with more realistic reactions to things. In Shrek 2 the familiar characters did more of the same thing, and the new characters weren't real vivid, with the exception of Puss in Boots, who was pretty good.

Action: There's not much of it in Shrek 2, far less than in Shrek 1, and it's not as funny or clever or essential to the plot. I'd give Shrek 1 a 7 on action just for the dragon and castle scene, a sequence which added significantly to the eye candy score as well.

Eye Candy: Shrek 2 looks great, but it's not new and ground-breaking, like Shrek 1 was, and there aren't any sets that can hold a candle to the inventiveness of Dulac, or the gorgeous dragon's castle from the first film.

Comedy: Shrek 2 is funny, but I was disappointed to see that the vast majority of the funniest stuff was featured in the trailers and the film clips. I now wish I hadn't seen any trailers or clips, since they stole the surprise of most of the best jokes.  With the obvious exception being the last comedy scene shown during the credits, and that was so hilarious to me largely because I didn't see it coming.  A lot of the comedy is visual and short; homages to other famous film scenes, and those were clever, but mostly in a "Ahh, that's just like the scene from Lord of the Rings/Beverly Hills Cop/The Princess Bride/Ghostbusters, etc."

Replayability: This is the one category in which I'm ranking Shrek 2 as high as Shrek 1, and it's mostly due to the dozens of tiny things, film scene homages, etc. I would enjoy a second viewing (I can wait for the DVD) just to try and spot more of those things, catch every parody store in Far Far Away Land, etc.  I do not think the overall story will hold up as well as Shrek, since it's not such a love story with so much emotional weight from the characters. Everything in Shrek 2 seems more preordained and the stakes are far lower.

Overall: I can watch Shrek 1 just about anytime, and enjoy it all, or I can watch the dragon castle part and love the look and action, or I can watch the humor scenes and laugh. I can't see Shrek 2 being that lasting or long term enjoyable. If I were just ranking Shrek 2 vs. Shrek 1, I'd probably give Shrek 2 a lower overall score. However, since it was a good movie and I'm comparing it to all other cinema, it deserves a 7. It was certainly better than any other movie I've seen in the last six months, other than Kill Bill 2. Which I do want to see again, perhaps enough to pay movie theater prices to do so.

Shrek 2 perfectly illustrates the problem with a sequel, since you can't help but compare it to the first movie, and it's virtually impossible for a sequel to be better, if only because all of the most interesting, surprising, novel things are now familiar. Sequels can work well if they take beloved characters and put them in a new place doing new things, and especially if we can skip the introductory stuff, get right to the story, and delve deeper into the characters.  Shrek did a lot of good things in that aspect, since it got right to the story, and sent them to a new place where they could do (somewhat) new things. However it failed in the character development, and that's my biggest complaint.

Shrek, Fiona, and Donkey were exactly the same people (um... yeah) all through Shrek 2 that they were at the end of Shrek 1. Shrek 2 was a lot less based on the key characters and their emotions, so they had less screen time, and they had virtually no emotional growth either. They just confronted slightly different versions of the same things, and had the same emotions and reactions to them this time around.  Too much of the movie rested on uninteresting sub-characters, and I was never very interested in how the King, Queen, Fairy Godmother, or Prince Charming felt about anything. None of them were interesting or quirky or wacky. Puss in Boots was, and he was fun, but the other four were very normal and average and dragged the story down with their screen time. They didn't suck, they weren't out of place, they were just average and boring, and in a comedy you don't need that many "straight men."  Especially since Shrek hardly did anything funny or interesting in Shrek 2, and Fiona did nothing either.  Basically all the humor came from Donkey, Puss, and the story/plot/situations/film scene homages.  Hell, annoying little Lord Farquaad in Shrek 1 was a far more interesting character than any of the new ones. Other than Puss.

Even the scene homages got a bit distracting and pointless. For one late, minor example, a catapult was destroyed by an incoming projectile, in a shot that was essentially identical to a scene from LotR:RotK. The catapult being destroyed made perfect sense, and was fine, but why stage it exactly (same camera angles, same direction of shot, characters in the same locations, etc) like the one from Return of the King? It didn't add anything to the film, and in fact it took me out of the scene, since rather than being in the excitement and enjoyment of the battle, I just thought, "Oh, that was from RotK." I had the same feeling through most of the last 15 minutes, with virtually every scene emulating something from another movie. Rather than watching Shrek 2, I just felt like I was trying to figure out what movie scene they were going to impersonate next, and trying to figure out if something they just showed was meant to be an homage to Movie X, or if it just happened to be similar.

It sort of reminded me of the opening of the disappointing Austin Powers 3. If you were fortunate enough to not see it, the movie opened with a short movie within a movie, sort of The Austin Powers Story, and it was funny to see Tom Cruise playing Austin, Danny Devito playing Mini-Me, Steven Spielberg directing it, and all the rest of the characters played by other big Hollywood stars. The problem was that it was a boring, cheesy segment, enlivened only by seeing which famous actors showed up. A cute novelty, but nothing better than a novelty, and one that got old in a hurry.

The film scene homages in Shrek 2 didn't get old as quickly, but I thought they were overused to the point of distraction, and I'd have been just fine with 50% as many.