DVD Review: Shrek the Halls
DreamWorks Animation Christmas Special With Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy
Oct 30, 2008 Dominic von Riedemann
DreamWorks Animation's Shrek the Halls is a good looking attempt at a Christmas special, but has a disturbingly cynical view of the holiday.
What's Shrek the Halls About?
Shrek (Mike Myers) has never even heard of Christmas, unlike Donkey (Eddie Murphy) who's already planning in June. True to form, Shrek's caught out by his procrastination on Christmas Night, and desperate to make it a memorable holiday for Fiona (Cameron Diaz) and his kids.
(Quick aside: if Christmas was so important to Fiona, why didn't she talk about it earlier?)
At the last minute, Shrek scores a copy of "Christmas for Village Idiots" (ha-ha), which he uses to assemble a holiday. Things seem to working out (Shrek, Fiona and the Shreklings do their own version of decorating) but then a gang – including Donkey's family, Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas), the Three Pigs – invade Shrek's house without permission.
Hijinks – and referential jokes - ensue, and Shrek loses his temper.
This being a Christmas special, there is a happy ending (sort of). However, Donkey's statement: "It isn't Christmas unless someone's crying, usually me," seems to be the overriding theme, a disturbing attitude towards the holiday. If Christmas is so traumatic, why even bother?
The biggest problem with Shrek the Halls is Donkey, who's supposed to be annoying, but funny and lovable. Murphy's manic delivery gets the annoying down, without any of the funny or the lovability. By the second sequence, the viewer wants Shrek to bury his wood-chopping axe in Donkey's skull.
On the plus side, the animation is extraordinary for a made-for-TV special, and the Puss in Boots Christmas sequence generates some laughs. But the constant in-jokes, a staple of the series, have worn thin and there's little real heart to sustain it otherwise.
DVD Extras
At first glance, it looks like DreamWorks piled on the extras for this DVD, but appearances can be deceiving. Both the "12 Days of Christmas" and "Deck the Halls" sing-alongs feature a ton of recycled footage from previous DreamWorks productions, including "The Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper." The few decent laughs in these songs are beaten to death and by the end, you just want them to be done.
There are a couple of DVD-ROM games in here as well, including "Gingy's Drinking (sorry) Dunking Game," and the Shrek Carnival Craze game demo and cheat code.
The DreamWorks Animation Video Jukebox continues the environmentally-friendly theme (it's all recycled) by just taking musical bits from previously-released DreamWorks Animation movies (such as the "I'm a Believer" sequence from Shrek, and "Here Comes the Sun" from Bee Movie) and popping them wholesale on the DVD. DreamWorks doesn't even bother adding new footage to turn these into complete songs.
Final Analysis
Ripping on a Christmas special is kind of like turning into Ebenezer Scrooge and ripping on the holiday itself. In that case, bring on the "Bah Humbug."
Shrek the Halls is good for maybe one or two laughs. The rest makes you nostalgic for the few animated Christmas specials that actually get it, like Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, A Charlie Brown Christmas or Chuck Jones' The Grinch That Stole Christmas.
Shrek the Halls gets a 3/10.
scene from Shrek the Halls
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