Shrek the Halls

For the next Christmas special, I think I will look at one that I saw not too long ago. The 2007 made for television 22 minute short, “Shrek the Halls.” This one takes place sometime between “Shrek 2” and “Shrek the Third,” and Shrek learns the importance of family (and extended family) during the holidays.

The special starts with Shrek, voiced by the creepy Austin Powers…I mean Mike Myers, talking to his friend Donkey, voiced by one of the funniest comedians, Eddie Murphy, about Christmas. As all Shrek fans know, he was a lone ogre before he met his wife Fiona, voiced by one of the drop dead gorgeous actresses, Cameron Diaz. During that time, he didn’t really feel like celebrating anything. Now that Shrek and Fiona are married and have triplets, Shrek wants to give his family the best Christmas ever. However, just when Shrek feels that he has done a job well done, the other familiar faces of the Shrek cast break into his swamp house and makes a mess.

As everyone knows, the first two Shrek movies were so funny (the second one being the best), and this special falls somewhere along the lines of being just as enjoyable as the first two. One of the things that they did right is that it wasn’t the usual 90 minute mark, so this is short and straight to the point. “Shrek the Halls” only needed to give us the usual laughs and nice feeling for the holidays, which it did. There was no need to add in a villain or nice action sequences for the kids.

Therefore, “Shrek the Halls” relied mainly on gross humor and slapstick to make the special hilarious, and with all of the Shrek cast members (including the three blind mice (voiced by Christopher Knights) the three little Pigs (voiced by Cody Cameron) Gingerbread Man (voiced by Conrad Vernon), Puss-in-Boots (voiced by Antonio Banderas), and Pinocchio (also voiced by Cameron)), it all works out in the end.

Kevin Carr said that the DVD came with special features (which I didn’t see). This includes a “sing-along of “12 Days of Christmas” and “Deck the Halls” featuring the “Madagascar” penguins, a dunking game, the DreamWorks Animation video jukebox and a video game demo.”

“Shrek the Halls” is a lot of fun to watch with your family, and you should make it a tradition to watch this every year around Christmastime. I also give this special a solid 10.

Look out tomorrow when I continue my 25 days of Christmas reviews.