Heading out to see this today hopefully. I was a bit surprised that they opened it on Wednesday. Also, there’s very little worthwhile opening this week, so the other major studios are running away and keeping their distance.
Early word of mouth reports are that it’s better than the first movie. I found the first Shrek to be enjoyable, so I’m looking forward to being entertained. I just hope I can catch an early enough showing to avoid a theater full of kids. :)
I predict nightmare scenarios for anyone planning to see this this weekend. It’s opening in a record number of theaters and is expected to gross more than $80m over the weekend – the last film that did that kind of business was X-2.
While the lines for X-2 were horrendous, at least they weren’t mostly composed of screaming kids, which I suspect Shrek 2’s will be. I might just pass on this for the first few weeks and go see it when things have calmed down a bit.
Here in LA, the Arclight is running special 21-and-up screenings. Smart–more and more adults are watching animated movies for themselves, I think, and a lot of them don’t want to be around screaming kids. (Plus, reserved seating = no lines)
Screaming kids ruin a movie just as much as peeps talking to the screen or morons who snuck their goddamn cell phone in…
Experience has shown me that early showings of films such as Shrek are composed almost entirely of kids.
It doesn’t matter how late you go, either. I remember one time I caught a midnight showing of Mulan, thinking it would be relatively kid-free, and it was packed with kids of all ages.
The adults-only screenings are a great idea…
I don’t have any problems with kids at a movie, if it’s a movie that’s made with kids in mind. I went to a Saturday matinee of Finding Nemo on opening weekend – the place was PACKED with little kids. They were all TOTALLY into the movie though – yes, they’d talk, but it’d be 'cause they were trying to warn the characters in the movie (“no! the shark!”) or whatever. Their energy (and many of their comments) made it easily three times as funny as it otherwise would’ve been.
The lady that brought her kids to 28 Days Later, on the other hand… ARGH.
If there are lots of kids at Shrek 2, well, I’m expecting it, and I wager they’ll be laughing along with everyone else, so it’ll all be good.
My wife and I went to see Babe 2 at a late showing and we were terribly disappointed that there were no kids there. It’s such a HORRIBLE movie for kids that we were disappointed that we weren’t able to enjoy a little kinderschandenfreude as the animals went from peril to peril…
Now that we’ve spawned ourselves, that seems terribly cruel. But at the time… :-)
Excellent point Andrew and the others who mentioned the positives of kids + movies in the right situation. I had the same experience with Finding Nemo and Elf. It really is a matter of finding the right balance. There was a kid in theater when I went to see Troy and bless his heart, he was asking questions about what the heck was going on. That’s kind of what I was looking to avoid, but you’re right, it will be different at something like Shrek since the kids will have boned up on Shrek 101 by rewatching Shrek.
Excellent point Andrew and the others who mentioned the positives of kids + movies in the right situation. I had the same experience with Finding Nemo and Elf. It really is a matter of finding the right balance. There was a kid in theater when I went to see Troy and bless his heart, he was asking questions about what the heck was going on. That’s kind of what I was looking to avoid, but you’re right, it will be different at something like Shrek since the kids will have boned up on Shrek 101 by rewatching Shrek.[/quote]
He couldn’t follow Troy? What was he, like three?
Sorry in advance for the off topic post.
I saw Shrek 2 last night because my wife suggested (insisted) that we go. I went in with quite low expectations since the original Shrek didn’t do much for me. Shrek 2 almost made me wet myself I was laughing so hard. The humor is a bit hit or miss, but when it hits it hits HARD. My bladder is still in danger if someone suddenly says, “Look, he’s wearing a thong!”
I highly recommend Shrek 2.
Has this happened much since last night?
Troy
Has this happened much since last night?
Troy[/quote]
More than you want to imagine 
Hmm, apparently not. Just get a quick little thing saying now in theaters.
Try the medium bandwidth version - I couldn’t get the large or high-res version to work
The reviewers who called this “as good as the first one” are on crack.
It’s funny. But maybe half as funny as the original.
Good film, but I’d give it a 3, compared to 4 for the original, using the standard 5-star game mag rating system. (That’s a 79%, PC Gamer readers!)
Good thing I tend to watch movies in a theatre which shows the English versions. (Living in Germany.) That kinda guarantees that there aren’t any or only a few kids in the audience. :)
I’m curious, what did you think the first movie did better than the second?
I’m firmly in the “second-movie-is-better” camp, but then I evaluate animated movies based only the comedy aspects. The more I laugh, the more I like it. The plot can be weak, the animation bad, the voice overs terrible and I’ll still love it if it gets me to laugh.
EDIT: Fixed many typos because my engrish seems to be more bad today.
Of course, the animation wasn’t bad. In fact, we had two gratuitous “look at our rain effects” scenes where they proudly flexed their rendering muscle.