Shrek 2

The comic target of the 2004 animation Andrew Adamson directed with Kelly Asbury and Conrad Vernon is not fairy tales but Hollywood. Far Far Away maps onto Los Angeles point for point. The hillside sign copies the Hollywood sign, cleared with the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce; the main street is Rodeo Drive, with shopfronts reading Saxxon Fifth Avenue and Farbucks; the ball plays in front of the Hollywood Bowl. A good share of the jokes sit above a child’s head. The second point is structural: halfway through, the film takes its hero out of his own face. Shrek drinks the potion and turns handsome, Fiona turns human, and Mike Myers spends the second half performing through someone else’s features. If you loved the first film because the ogre stayed an ogre, that stretch is a strange sit. Two production facts: original writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio left over creative disagreements and Adamson took the script over; Jennifer Saunders sang Holding Out for a Hero herself as the Fairy Godmother. It opened to 108 million dollars in 4,163 cinemas and finished at 441 million domestically. Not for you if: you lack the 2004 reference set. The Cops parody, the upside-down Spider-Man kiss and the inscribed Lord of the Rings ring land on the room around you, not you.