Short, but as per usual, spoilers galore ...

[apocalypsos]

Shrek 2: A Review in Q&A Form

I didn't know they were making a Shrek 2!

Oh, I'm sorry. Do you live under a rock?

No, actually, I'm locked in a closet and fed pancakes slid under the door. Please save me.

Uh, I think I'll pass. Mostly to save you from the horror of Catwoman. Hey, I can only handle one heroic gesture at a time.

But if it makes you feel any better, I know exactly how deprived you must feel. Why, if it weren't for the newspaper ads, the commercials, the tacky green fast-food giveaways, the magazine articles, the bus advertisements, Pepsi, Lay's, M&Ms, and the trailer slapped onto every movie to come out since the weekend after the first one was released, I would have never noticed Shrek 2 was in five theaters at my usual place.

Watch it, buster. I can't wash sarcasm out of this shirt.

Try club soda and a healthy bitch-slap. Works every time.

So, did it follow the sequel formula of answering all of the burning questions you had at the end of the first movie?

Well, let's see. At the end of the first movie, I was thinking, "Wait a sec. So how are a dragon and a donkey going to hook up?" And my question was answered, and the answer was, "Look, they can, all right? And they can make adorable little mutant children, just whatever you do, don't think of the porn."

Oh, Jesus, I'm thinking of the porn right now! Bad trollprincess! You're so evil!

Evil? Oh, come on. If I have to kill off brain cells figuring out what it takes to make little dragon-donkey babies, then I'm going to damn well even it out and kill off some of your brain cells, too.

Look what you did! You killed off the brain cells that remember the characters in the movie! Remind me, oh Satanic one!

Er, right.

Shrek ... You know that ugly green guy on every piece of food you've bought at the grocery store for the past few months? No, not the Jolly Green Giant, the other one. Yeah, that guy. Is an ogre, but chugs a potion and spends most of the movie in human form looking like he could plow snow with his chin. Even with the chin, is still kinda hot, even for an animated character.

Donkey ... Still small, still gray, still obnoxious. Also chugs a potion, and turns into a big white horse. Is still annoying enough that you wish Shadowfax would show up and beat the crap out of him for being a poser.

Fiona ... Shrek's now-an-ogre wife. Voiced by Cameron Diaz, which is why the animators thought it was cute to put a "Sir Justin" poster on her bedroom wall. This joke was old right about the time I ran out of popcorn.

Puss In Boots ... Assassin hired by Fiona's father to get Shrek out of the way. He's an adorable little kitty voiced by Antonio Banderas, which means he possesses the ability to turn a good percentage of heterosexual women into wibbling idiots at the same time he can spontaneously combust panties from twenty feet away.

Prince Charming ... He's blond! He's pissed! He'll see you on the lists ... oh, wait, that's Ulrich von Lichtenstein. A pompous prettyboy who wears glitter lip gloss and a hairnet and needs his mommy to get him a date. It's entirely possible this may be one of the guys I dated and/or had a crush on who turned out to be gay and I didn't even know it. Yup, forget Typhoid Mary ... meet Latent Homosexuality Jennifer.

King Harold ... Fiona's father who gets in deep with the Fairy Godmother and generally acts like a complete and total fuckstick, yet doesn't get smacked by his wife. Is only saved from a wifely bitch-slap because his wife is voiced by Julie Andrews, who is much too classy to do that sort of thing and would probably just pants him instead.

Fairy Godmother ... Imagine Martha Stewart with a silver beehive and only slightly less evil magical abilities. Okay, you're done.

The Ugly Stepsister ... Is only being mentioned here because of being voiced by Larry King. Yes, that Larry King. Probably only did it for his kids, which I can imagine was one of the scarier conversations on record. "Daddy, that ugly woman sounds like you!"

Okay, so what was the plot?

Well, Shrek and Fiona come back from their honeymoon to find out Fiona's parents want to meet Shrek. Which you know will turn out badly even before it starts, because no parent would be thrilled to find out their daughter was going to spend the rest of her life listening to Mike Myers' second-rate Scottish accent.

So, what's Fiona's family's kingdom like?

Oh, it's swell. It looks just like Hollywood, except I'm pretty sure that if Far Far Away has its own medieval version of Paris Hilton, the only way I could have missed her inevitable cameo is because she was playing one of the arrows.

No, really.

What do you want me to tell you? It's got everything you could possibly imagine ... two Starbucks, stretch carriages, Joan Rivers ...

Wait a second. Joan Rivers?!

Yes, that Joan Rivers. So if you're wondering if there was a wicked witch in this movie ... yes. Yes, there was.

Hey, how incredibly cool was Puss in Boots?

Oh, he can totally kick your ass. Mostly by making you think he's a harmless little woobie and then ripping new holes in you, but hey, whatever works.

Does all this mean you liked it?

Sure, why not?

Better than the first one?

Okay, I'll go with that.

You seem awfully casual about this whole thing.

Dude, I'm the world's biggest apocalypto-junkie and The Day After Tomorrow comes out next week. Not that I didn't like the movie, but I would have liked it a hell of a lot better of a megatwister had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, sucked up Donkey, and spit him somewhere Shrek's cuddly human bod wasn't.

What's with the fixation of how Shrek looked as a human?

It's all about personal preference. Right after the Beast's hottie human form at the end of Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, Shrek's human form comes in third on the list of Animated Characters I'd Totally Do Against a Wall.

That's such a a gross concept.

Dragon-donkey porn.

AH! My eyes! *explodingeyeballs*

Hee. That was fun. Let's do that lots more, 'kay?

All right, change of subject. Did you learn anything else new from Shrek 2?

Yeah. It turns out Pinocchio is a perv. But then again, if you're a little boy puppet that some old man made as a "companion" and your nose is a notorious phallic symbol, that's to be expected.

Why? What makes him a perv?

Too many Ed Wood movies, I imagine.

That was a pretty crappy attempt at changing the subject.

Pinocchio wears thongs. So there.

Anything else you want to say about the movies? I mean, you haven't even bitched about the pre-film commercials yet!

Oh, I forgot to warn you guys not to drink Fanta. There was this public service anouncement before the movie that said if you drink Fanta, you'll dance like a dumbass and dress like a blind go-go dancer and spontaneously clone yourself when you engage in water sports. No, seriously.