Shrek the Halls

Shrek the Halls is a brand spanking new Holiday special that had its first airing on ABC at the end of November.

RigbyMel says:

I have mixed feelings about the Shrek franchise generally.  I really liked the first two movies, but I thought Shrek The Third, while still fun was decidedly an illustration of the law of diminishing returns.  Based on my feelings about Shrek The Third, I just rolled my eyes and sighed when I learned that a FOURTH Shrek movie is already in production.

That being said, I think that Shrek the Halls was on a par with the first two movies, which is a good thing.

The Shrek characters all put their own spin on the Christmas holidays with amusing results and points of view.  For example, Donkey pictures Santa as being made of waffles, while the Gingerbread Man has a decidedly different (and funny, if you're not a cookie) take on the Claus.  Shrek himself has never experienced Christmas before ("Ogres don't celebrate Christmas!") and is trying to make Fiona and the baby Shreks happy with a perfect holiday and no interference from Donkey, Puss, et al. (Obviously that doesn't quite go according to plan!)

Overall, the message of the show, if there really was one, seemed to be that family can include friends as well as the traditional "nuclear family".  There were several bits that made me laugh out loud even, which is also a good thing. Puss in Boots becoming distracted batting at the puffball on the end of the Santa hat was priceless, as a for instance.

The anachronistic music still bothers me - as it has in all of the Shrek series, but really there are so
many anachronisms and it's not really of a particular real time and place anyway that I guess I should get over that.

I am not yet convinced that this show constitutes a "Christmas classic", but it was a lot of fun and better than I expected it to be.  Only time will tell re. the "classic" status (or lack thereof).

RigbyMel's rating:

3 Candy Canes.


JA Morris says:

I generally agree with what RigbyMel said, it’s a good Christmas special, but not up there with the classics.  I also appreciated the different versions of Twas The Night Before Christmas told by Shrek, Donkey & Puss.  And the Three Little Pigs were especially funny!

One other thing I appreciated: You could watch this back-to-back with any of the Shrek movies and there wouldn’t be a big fall-off in terms of animation, production values, etc.  Most straight-to-tv sequels usually have a cheaper appearance, more like “Saturday Morning Cartoons" than big screen movies.

A 36 year old is not the target audience for Shrek The Halls but I enjoyed it and it didn’t seem dumbed down in any way.

JA Morris's rating:

3 Candy Canes.