Word: farquaad
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Shrek, to be sure, has its moments. The ragtag collection of fairy-tale characters, from Pinocchio to the Three Bears, who are evicted from the kingdom by the pint-size despot Lord Farquaad, do a bouncy lament for their sorry plight, "Story of My Life," that is a high point, even if the screechy characters wear a little thin as the evening goes on. Composer Jeanine Tesori (with lyricist David Lindsay-Abaire) has supplied a few other cute numbers, most of them straightforward Broadway pop but with an occasional blues-rock beat, as in the funny, flatulence-enlivened love duet...
Meantime, the local tyrant, Lord Farquaad, has been torturing the Gingerbread Man. "No, not my buttons, not my gumdrop buttons!" his brave but hapless victim piteously cries. Just why his lordship takes such violent umbrage at fairy-tale creatures is not clear. But he decrees that they all be exiled from his kingdom to Shrek's fen, which irritates the monster...
...matter what the state of its animators' art, because it has an amusing (and morally useful) tale to tell. Basically, we're talking that old standby, a quest story. The ogre (Mike Myers characterizes him vocally as a dour Scotsman) does a deal with the vertically challenged Farquaad (John Lithgow) to rescue Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz) from a faraway castle. If he succeeds, the princeling will marry the girl and remove the crowd of enchanted nuisances from Shrek's property...
...show. In what may be Murphy's funniest role since The Nutty Professor (or Metro, but that was more of an unintentional thing), Donkey prances around the screen, firing off a stream of surprisingly funny jokes and comments. Lithgow also deserves praise and laughs for his vocals on Farquaad, who is perhaps the first on-screen character ever on screen to have computer-animated chest hair...
...fairytale world of the Brothers Grimm and Disney upside down. The film, based on the storybook by William Steig, revolves around the character of Shrek, voiced by Mike Myers, a smelly ogre who enjoys solitude. The isolation of his home, however, is threatened by the power-hungry, midget Lord Farquaad (John Lithgow '67) who forcefully relocates all the fairy tale characters from his theme-park-like kingdom to Shrek's swamp. In order to live in peace, Shrek strikes a deal with Farquaad: if the ogre rescues Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz) from her enchanted castle, the evil ruler will remove...