Shrek (2001)

     Shrek is one of the greatest fairytales to grace this Earth.

     Yeah, I said it.

     Shrek.

     Forget every cookie cutter, happily-ever-after-no-matter-what fan service stories you grew up with- because Shrek is better than all of them.

     Let me explain.

     Shrek is an unorthodox tale of an ogre and his ass and the journey to find a hot redheaded princess voiced by hot blonde Cameron Diaz.

     It starts with a completely naked green monster bathing himself in mud. We quickly find out that this, in fact, is Shrek- our unusual and unexpected protagonist.

     Shrek appears to have a big problem with anyone coming in his swamp because after his shower dubbed with "All Star" by Smash mouth is interrupted by a couple of rogue guards coming in to just mess with him, Shrek scares them just by looking like Shrek and posts some "BEWARE! OGRES!" signs around his property.

                We then cut to a fantastical bazaar filled with all sorts of magical creatures. A ugly old hag is trying to convince some knightsmen to buy her talking donkey.

     The knightsmen are convinced the donkey can't speak because the donkey... won't speak. This is quickly disproven though, because someone ends up spilling fairy dust all over the ass, causing him to start flying. The donkey reveals that he actually can speak by taunting the knights with threats of "never being able to catch me alive." The fairy dust wears off and then he promptly falls to the ground. The guards chase donkey into the forest, where he ends up bumping into Shrek.

     In a strange turn of events, the donkey ends up hiding behind Shrek, who defends him and prevents the knights from capturing him by Shrek threatening to eat their bones or something. The guards, defeated, run back to their little slave trade and Donkey (whose name is actually Donkey) thanks Shrek. As it turns out, Donkey is actually really annoying and follows Shrek all the way back to his swamp. Donkey asks Shrek if he can stay over and even sits in Shrek's special dirty chair, but Shrek is so irritated that he tells Donkey to go sleep outside. Donkey walks outside with a sad, defeated look on his face; which I guess makes Shrek feel like a pretty big (and not in a good way) dick, so Shrek also gets this sad, defeated look on his face when he starts eating his dinner alone as usual.

     Right in the middle of looking as sad as possible, Shrek's dinner is interrupted by his house being infiltrated by a bunch of those magical creatures from the sex trade bazaar; most namely: Pinocchio, The Three Blind Mice, & Fox.

     He goes outside to find even more fairytale things on his lawn. They tell him that some idiot named Lord Farquaad signed something that made it so that the only place fairytale creatures could live was on this swamp. Shrek is rightfully annoyed again and tells the creatures he's gonna go to Lord Farquaad and get it all cleared up so they can get the fuck off of his property. Except he doesn't know where it is and nobody wants to volunteer to help him except donkey.

     So he is forced to take Donkey with him.

     CUT TO ZONE 3 where Lord Farquaad and a muscle-y dude dressed head to toe in black are waterboarding some gingerbread cookie in milk. Lord Farquaad has an amazing laugh; and- revealed to us in a hilarious table-lowering scene- lacks height. Like, a lot of it. It's like he has a normal sized head and then the body half the size of a normal sized person's body. He also has this weird bowl cut that's actually not exactly a bowl cut. Comes off as evil right away. Great character design.

     The interrogation is interrupted by a guard saying they found "it." They put "it," which turns out to be a magic mirror on the wall. Lord Farquaad wastes no time and asks it what his future as a king is like. The mirror laughs at him and says he's not a king. The muscle-y dude, Thelonius, breaks a hand mirror in front of the magic one, insinuating that if it doesn't take what it just said back, he's gonna fuck him up real good. The magic mirror quickly mends his statement by telling Farquaad that he isn't a king "yet." Since Farquaad isn't actually of any royal lineage, he has to marry a princess to become a real king. The mirror then proceeds to do a bachelorette-style catalog of women for Farquaad. From three choices (Cinderella, Snow White, and Fiona), Thelonius convinces Farquaad to pick Fiona- which he does. The mirror tells Farquaad that while she (Fiona) likes "Pina Colodas and getting caught in the rain," she's actually the hardest of the bunch to obtain because of a fire-breathing dragon at the top of a tower in the middle of nowhere or something. The mirror tries to tell him something else but Lord Farquaad looks at Fiona's Tinder picture once more and falls in love and stops listening. Farquaad turns around and tells his guards to gather his best men because they're going to have a contest to see who's the most able man to retrieve his new bride.

     So Shrek walks in just on time.

     After making a dick joke, Shrek and Donkey walk into the arena where Hilter- I mean- Farquaad is forcing his guards to fight eachother to the death. After Farquaad sees Shrek in his Aryan arena, he's disgusted and tells his knights to fight Shrek to the death instead. Obviously Shrek wins against everyone because he's the best. Farquaad is disgusted and then impressed. He declares Shrek the champion. Shrek tells Farquaad he's pissed because of all those annoying fairytale creatures at his swamp. Farquaad cuts a deal with Shrek and says he'll get rid of them and grant Shrek that swamp land forever if he goes and gets Fiona. So Shrek decides he's going to go and get Fiona.

     There's a montage with some sick 2000s beats while Shrek and Donkey get to Fiona's castle which is on an island surrounded by lava instead of water.

     Somehow Donkey ends up getting separated and held hostage by the fire-breathing dragon while Shrek is in Fiona's room breaking her out.

     Fiona's pretty upset Shrek isn't doing all the prince-ly stuff she was promised in her fairytale books. But, to be fair, Shrek wasn't Prince Charming.

     Shrek goes back to save Donkey. There's even more epic getaway music playing as they're getting away. Seriously, this movie has sound on par with Monsters Unleashed. Shrek, Fiona, and Donkey end up escaping by the dragon getting stuck to the island by a chandelier Shrek put around the dragon's neck.

     Fiona is horny af after being stuck in that tower for 20 years, so right when they get to a safe distance she forces him to take off his helmet. Shrek really doesn't want to but he does. I guess Fiona's drive went away, though, because she gets all pissy Prince Charming didn't show up when she sees Shrek's ogre face.

     Shrek ends up having to throw Fiona on his shoulder because she won't go anywhere. A couple of hours later, it's sunset and they're in the middle of the forest and Fiona gets paranoid and makes them build camp. Then she's rude again and closes them out of their own camp.

     Shrek and Donkey are looking at constellations when Donkey asks one too many questions and gets Shrek all worked up about how nobody understanding him and how they all judge him before they know him. I literally almost cried.

     The next morning Fiona is all chipper for no reason. She apologises to Shrek for being a bitch and then they start going to Farquaad again.

     And then some cheapo Robin Hood comes along and tries to kidnap her.

     Walmart Robin Hood goes into a singing montage where he threatens to slit Shrek's throat because he has a complex about pretty women with ugly guys or something? Idk what his problem was LOL. Fiona ends up single-handledly kicking Hood and his crew's asses; and, in the action Shrek gets an arrow stuck right in his too. Fiona pulls that out. Donkey passes out. Some more great montage music.

     They pretty much fall in love over that 30-second-portraying-3-hour montage and both of them are shooting straight do me eyes. Donkey ruins the mood by saying its sunset, which makes Fiona paranoid again. Fiona runs into some abandoned building and says goodnight. Donkey and Shrek have a little talk about Shrek thinking he's not good enough for a princess or something. Really stupid but whatever. I mean, she's clearly into him. But whatever. I already said whatever.

     Donkey gets lonely when Shrek wanders off and goes into the abandoned building and finds Fiona - *AUDIBLE GASP* as an OGRE???! Plot twist: Fiona turns into an ogre every sunset because of some bum ass witch. Shrek overhears the conversation wrong while Fiona's calling herself a "hideous ugly beast" and wondering how anyone can ever love someone like that.

     Shrek is so upset he tells Lord Farquaad he can just come get Fiona where they are. So he does. Farquaad proposes to her on the spot. He says they'll get married tomorrow but Fiona doesn't want him to find out about the ogre curse so she says they should get married that same day.

     Donkey tries to go back home with Shrek but Shrek screams at him because he thinks Donkey was conspiring with Fiona or whatever. It didn't really matter that it happened, though, because Donkey just ended up back at the swamp; insisting that half of the land belonged to him because he helped get Fiona? Yeah, I'm sure Farquaad wrote it just like that.

     Shrek and Donkey get into a fight. Donkey ends up clearing up the situation but doesn't tell Fiona's secret because he's a good boy.

     They break into the wedding with Dragon. Shrek gets the girl. Shrek and the girl get married. Oh, and Fiona stays a ogre. But it all good. It's all good, man.
   
     I know how much of a joke this review might seem to be...
     but I actually really like Shrek.
     Shrek 2 more, but this right here is what started it.
     And I appriciate that.