(2) SHREK

(2001-2010: SHREK 1-4. Yeah, the third film is lackluster but I didn’t mind the fourth)

“I’m not the monster here, you are. You and that fairy tale trash poisoning my perfect world”

What’s not to love about Dreamworks 2001 film Shrek? Or its 2004 sequel for that matter?

The ultimate fractured fairy tale, the film has all the ingredients of the fairy tale – an adventurer on a quest to save a princess in a castle guarded by a dragon – except that the adventurer is the eponymous green-skinned ogre, who just wants to regain the solitude of his swamp from the fairy tale creatures who have been exiled there by (ahem) Lord Farquaad. To do so, he undertakes to save the princess Fiona for marriage to Farquaad, accompanied by the obnoxiously conversational talking donkey, named Donkey of course. And that’s where things go even further astray from your traditional fairy tale.

“Notorious for its humor, both witty and slapstick, for turning everything we knew from fairy tales upside-down, and for a ridiculously modern feel of its medieval fantasy setting”, it was the winner of the first Academy Award for Animated Feature.

Some would argue that the sequel Shrek 2 was even better than the original – even if that would make it an exception to my Stark Law of Sequels that the original is always the best. On the other hand, I just can’t resist Antonio Banderas’ purringly-voiced Puss in Boots.

No one argues the third film compares to the first two but I don’t mind the fourth. We’ll have to see how the fifth film turns out.

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD-TIER)