Shrek: 25 Years On

The fairy tale subverting animated comedy still has me in stitches, mainly due to Eddie Murphy

“Ogres are like onions. They have layers.” Credit: Dreamworks

Warning: Contains spoilers

While DreamWorks was animating Shrek (2001), they were also animating The Prince of Egypt (1998). The latter was considered a much classier project to be working on, so if animators were perceived as under par in some way, they were punished by being transferred to working on Shrek instead. This was known as being “Shreked”. It is somewhat ironic, therefore, that Shrek — a film that evidently wasn’t well regarded by Dreamworks animators — went on to become a huge hit, whereas The Prince of Egypt made a lot less at the box office.

To be clear, box office is not a metric of quality. The latter biblical retelling is nothing less than magnificent, but Shrek is wonderful too, and it is amusing that it proved immensely popular after being the butt of an internal joke. An anarchic blast of fairy-tale subverting fun, it also delivers the same feel-good factor as the best Disney princess animated classics on its own terms. A quarter of a century later, it still makes me laugh like a drain, and whilst digital animation has come a long way, Shrek still feels fresh and thoroughly amiable.