To let you know what the film was like I will you give a quick briefing of the story.
The film starts with an ugly ogre who liked to live on his own and was feared by humans. He eventually meets up with a donkey and he brings every fairy tale characters to Shreks swamp. Shrek doesn’t approve of this and decides to go to lord Farquaad and get him to get all of the fairy tale characters off his swamp. Instead he has to go on a dangerous journey to rescue a princess called Fiona.
After a long journey Shrek manages to rescue the princess from the fire breathing dragon, he then takes Fiona to the king. The king decides to marry the princess that same day.
When they are beside the altar and about to say their words of marriage Shrek come in and stops them. He loves the princess but Shrek doesn’t know that the princess has a secret, suddenly night fall arrives and Fiona turns into an ogre. They both then decide to get married and live happily ever after.
Shrek appeals to children, adults and teenagers because of the characters it uses. Children like it because it has animals which talk and because it uses bold colours which stand out. Teenagers and adults like it because it has comedy in it and because they know the people who play the characters, e.g. Eddie Murphy. It also copy’s other parts of movies and makes fun of them. It has a slow motion fight scene which is out of the matrix, when the princess fights robin hoods men .it has a part copied from sleeping beauty as Princess Fiona is in a tower pretending to be a sleep. The language used appeals to young children as it is clear. Adults would like the language to be clear to as they aren’t used to hearing it as the language is quite modern and used by teenagers. The music used is forwarded to children, because at the beginning of the movie the music is soft and classical, just like fairy tale music. It also has music which teenagers and adults like such as rock and pop music.
One scene that stands out is the tournament scene as it is a good scene to describe as I think it is a good one. The tournament scene is effective as it is funny as the crowd star to support Shrek by telling him to do things which you wouldn’t expect people to do in that time, such as telling Shrek to hit a knight over the head with a chair. The music changes from gentle tone to a fast fighting style of music. The shots are also effective as it starts with long shots to show the surroundings. They are close shots to show expressions, over the shoulder shots to see a first person view, a panning camera shot is used as well to keep up with the character.
I am looking forward to Shrek 2 as the first one was very good as it had comedy and action in it which I like. It also made fun of lots of other movies and movie companies. Compared to other films it is good but is now dated, the new films now are taking over Shrek and leaving it in there wake, but I still like it and I think the new Shrek will be a success.
