Shrek 2 (2004)

MEET THE PARENTS Princess Fiona unveils her new look -- and hubby -- to her folks in ''Shrek 2''

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Shrek 2

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Shrek 2 has a rowdy, jumpin'-jive vivacity. It's not quite as emotionally rounded as ''Shrek'' was (there's nothing in it that can match the way the first film used the dulcet passion of Rufus Wainwright singing ''Hallelujah''), but it's got heart and delirium in equal doses, as well as a firecracker rhythm all its own. You never know what's going to get thrown at you next, and that's fine, since neither, apparently, do the digital animators, who are madcap masters of the free-association zap. This is a movie in which Pinocchio, in the middle of a daring rescue, hangs from a thicket of puppet strings while the ''Mission: Impossible'' theme shimmies and bops, and just as you're giggling at the throwaway Tom Cruise reference, the wooden boy has to tell a lie to make his nose grow, which is why he's forced to state that he isn't wearing women's underwear. (You heard me.) It's the deadpan lunacy of the joke that gooses you. ''Shrek 2'' takes a little while to get going, but once it does it's more than clever -- it's a seriously warped pileup of fun.

The first ''Shrek,'' for all its nattering brio, was a glorious hymn to imperfection. Shrek, the vulgar, mud-bath-taking, none-too-jolly green ogre, with his lower lip curled forward as if it were a small fist, stomped and groused his way through the movie like a guy who wanted to be anything but a hero, and it was part of the film's wholehearted spirit to recognize that he acted that way because he was so uneasy about being liked. Driven by Mike Myers' sensationally cantankerous Scottish bellow, Shrek vanquished the vile Lord Farquaad and rescued the captive beauty Fiona, who matched up with him more than he could guess -- but beyond all that, he embraced his inner ogre, and his outer one, too. He conquered his self-hatred, which is what made ''Shrek'' the rare animated fairy tale with lasting adult resonance.

Andrew Adamson, one of the original codirectors, has now been joined by Kelly Asbury and Conrad Vernon, and they face a challenge that's a bit trickier than the one that confronts the usual Hollywood sequel crunchers: They've got to figure out how to turn their prince back into a frog. After his honeymoon, Shrek allows his bride, the pig-nosed princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz), to talk him into paying a visit to her parents -- the King and Queen of Far Far Away, voiced by John Cleese and Julie Andrews in tones so formal and proper that the two might have come off a deck of cards.

Teaming up with Donkey (Eddie Murphy), whose romance with the Dragon, it seems, didn't quite work out, Shrek and his bride make the journey in a carriage shaped like a bulb of garlic, finally pulling up inside the kingdom, a posh squeaky-clean medieval suburb studded with a litany of chain stores like Tower of London Records. The satire is actually a bit vague: Is this supposed to be another Jeffrey Katzenberg poke at Disneyfication, or is it just a jab at good old 21st-century mall America? When Shrek loses his temper at a hellacious dinner with his in-laws, you can feel the film working too hard to turn him into a self-doubting monster again. For half an hour or so, ''Shrek 2'' is a little earthbound -- it's like the kickoff episode of ''Everybody Loves Shrek.''

The movie throttles into high gear when our hero heads to the woods for a morning hunt with his duplicitous father-in-law and is met, instead, by Puss-in-Boots, a preening tabby-cat assassin voiced by Antonio Banderas with a hilarious, rapid-fire olé panache that makes him sound like a cross between Zorro and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Puss, who slides, as if on an oil slick, between butt kissing and vainglorious bravado, has a priceless mock savoir faire, and once he joins Shrek's team, the movie attains its appropriate state of helter-skelter rudeness. The other new characters are the unctuously coiffed Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) and his mom, Fairy Godmother, voiced by ''Ab Fab'''s Jennifer Saunders as the most persnickety of spell casters. She's Martha Stewart with a wand.

In a scene of pure nutzoid glee, Shrek and his cohorts ransack Fairy Godmother's potion factory, where they end up stealing a glowing beaker of Happily Ever After elixir, which gives the ugly Shrek the makeover of his dreams. It's a nifty twist, though the satire of our perfectionistic image culture might have had greater bite if Shrek had gotten a little more hooked on his newfound self. No matter. By the end of ''Shrek 2,'' Shrek, with a little help from his friends (who now include a freshly baked Gingerbread Man the size of Godzilla), embraces, once again, the role of noble outsider, and he sweeps the audience right along with him. If he can live ''la vida loca,'' why can't we? EW Grade: A-