Shrek 2

By EWAN McDONALD

(Herald rating: * * * * * )

Luc, who is 7 and moonlights as the Herald's Special Correspondent on Kids' Flicks, let me down over this one. Instead of following the rule, which is that if there's a really cool movie coming to town you let Poppa take you to see it, he went to Shrek 2 with someone else. Harrrumph ... so I've had to wait several extra months to see the sequel to the best animated story of 'em all. As you can see by the 5 stars, it was worth it.

Our story begins where the Oscar-winning first episode left off three years ago. Prince Charming (voice: Rupert Everett) arrives to save Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz) from the dragon, only to discover she has already been saved by the ogre, Shrek (Mike Myers). Not only that, they've married and are on honeymoon.

When the relatively happy couple come home they find Donkey (Eddie Murphy) has moved into their swamp. Plus, there's an invitation to meet the Princess' parents at a royal knees-up.

Shrek is not keen but the threesome head off to the in-laws' castle in Far Far Away. King Harold (John Cleese) and his Queen (Julie Andrews) are less than impressed to find their little girl has married an ogre rather than Prince Charming — and, to top it all, become a jolly green giant too.

The King and Shrek do not get on. Which gives Prince Charming's mum, the Fairy Godmother (a delicious cameo from Jennifer Saunders) the chance to get alongside King Harold and scheme to get rid of him and put her lad back in line for the throne. They hire a hit-cat, Puss-in-Boots (Antonio Banderas), to see off Shrek. He lucks out and decides to bat for the other side: Puss, Shrek and Donkey try to find out who wants our ogre out of the way.

Well, that's the kid-level, and Luc reckons it's as good as, or even better, than the first movie, which we have played about 3592 times, and he specially likes Puss-in-Boots.

But like any good kids' movie there's another level for the adults. Andrew Adamson, home to make The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe in Waitakere, and his team take the proverbial out of Mission: Impossible, Kill Bill, Flashdance, Lord of the Rings, From Here to Eternity and Spider-Man, and those are only the ones I can remember. There are bound to have been others, but they either went past so fast or were send-ups of something that was on another channel and I missed.

Far Far Away is a send-up of Beverly Hills shopping, Joan Rivers provides the red-carpet commentary at the ball ... if you've watched anything at the multiplex or on TV in the past 20 years, you'll get the pictures. And the music: Counting Crows, Ricky Martin, Bowie, Nick Cave, the Buzzcocks, Chic, the Raspberries and, just to keep Poppa chuckling, Captain Hook sings Tom Waits: "I like my town with a little drop of poison, Nobody knows they're lining up to go insane ..." and this is billed as a kids' movie?

The computer-generated animation is even better than the first movie and they're well under way on episode 3, due out in 2006. That might be pushing it; I'm jiggered if I can see where they can take the story. But take a note, Luc: when that comes to town, I don't expect you to go with someone else, okay?

* DVD, video rental 3 November

* DVD not available for review