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Shrek 2 - Why I Absolutely Adore It

Not many sequels that follow up award-winning movies have much quality. But when they do, they would go under the name of Shrek 2. Shrek 2 is thought by many as the “perfect sequel”, a sequel that is even better than the first movie. And as someone who grew up on watching Shrek 2 and could watch it several times a day if I wanted to, I am completely satisfied with this movie’s popularity and the fans’ favoritism towards it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Nk7y6c1Tow

This video inspired this blog and inspired the idea of this movie as the perfect sequel. It really made me realize how much love this movie deserves, therefore it is in my top three movies of all time. Let’s start off with the beginning: One of the two main antagonists, Prince charming, travels miles upon miles to reach the castle of Princess Fiona whom he was hoping to awaken with a kiss and eventually marry, only to come across a wolf reading a book. The wolf proceeds to tell Prince Charming that Princess Fiona is on her honeymoon, transitioning to the honeymoon of Shrek and Fiona. And another scene, one of the most amazing scenes in this movie, is when another major antagonist, Fairy Godmother who is also Prince Charming’s mother, is singing a fantastic cover of Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding out for a Hero”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLHCS6oL7lo

This scene has got to be one of the most exciting and hilariously suspenseful climaxes of all time, with Shrek coming to save Fiona from falling in love with Prince Charming and Fairy Godmother singing to encourage Fiona to dance with her son (who also was pretending to be Shrek once Shrek drank a potion to turn him and Fiona into humans). And another thing that’s fantastic is the portrayal of these characters. In most media, Prince Charming is seen as the knight in shining armor that’s come to save the princess and wake her with a true love’s kiss, fighting a dragon guarding her before succeeding with his mission. But with Shrek 2, the character himself is snobby, stuck up, a whiny mama’s boy, and will step over others to get what he wants. And the funny part of this character is that he’s supposed to be the ‘pretty boy’ when really he’s a bit ugly, especially when compared to the human version of Shrek. Fairy Godmother is normally portrayed as this magical woman that’s kind and there for the princess when she needs someone, always on the side of the hero-- But her portrayal here provides her as a mother who lets her son have whatever he wants, constantly creating potions in a factory where she’s top dog, is manipulative, and will make your wishes come true but will have you under her foot so you would have to do whatever she wanted or she would reverse whatever spell she granted. She threatened to do this with Fiona’s father, King Harold, who was originally a frog but was turned human so he could marry the woman he fell in love with.

The ending of this movie was a happy ending but one that made me go “Aw come on”. Shrek and Fiona got their happiness, but only when they turned back to ogres because Fiona fell in love with his true form; his ogre form. I mean I get it, he wouldn’t have remained happy if he stayed human but I still wanted to see them spend more time as humans. Then they ended the movie with a cover of Livin’ La Vida Loca by Ricky Martin before proceeding to the credits.

And to top it all off, if you have the dvd version of Shrek 2 then you will have access to Far Far Away Idol which is basically a Shrek version of American Idol, Simon Cowell is even there to voice act as himself.

Once again, Shrek 2 is a movie that is legendary to the Shrek franchise and for many more years to come, it will remain the best and probably most popular out of all of the Shrek movies. Here are some links that provide a bit more on why Shrek 2 is so amazing. 

https://screenrant.com/shrek-movies-ranked-worst-best/

https://www.dailyeasternnews.com/2020/01/21/opinion-shrek-2-is-better-than-shrek/