Shrek2

Shrek2 begins when Fiona and Shrek go on their honeymoon and return to find Donkey keeping house for them (more or less.) Fiona’s parents want them to come for a visit so they can give their blessing to the marriage. And the adventures begin.

Shrek2 is aimed a little older audience than the Shrek – perhaps hoping to interest the now more mature audience that enjoyed the first film. Lots of double entendre, a little scatalogoical humor – and Joan Rivers, Starbucks and Hollywood – watch out! The film is such a spoof on the cult of image… and continues to have some of the same themes that made the original so enjoyable…. family, body image, self-confidence, sacrifice for others and for love, truth, reconciliation. Sound track is pretty good – though I think it could have been better (in my vast experience and ever so humble opinion.)

The audience really laughed – and so did I.

Eddie Murphy lives!!! But Antonio Banderas as the voice of the fairy tale character “Puss in Boots” is way funny. Garfield, beware!

Van Helsing

VAN HELSING is pure cinematic comic book horror and Hugh Jackman knows how to pull it off (X-Men franchise). It’s over-the-top and funny, and uses the Catholic Church (to an absurd extreme) and Catholic imagery and theological tradition, much like Nosferatu (the Dracula story is the Christ story in reverse) and other Dracula stories.

It’s really a too-long hodge-podge of all the vampire/Frankenstein flicks that have come before – but it was fun. I think there’s a commentary in there somewhere on what happens when technology, human life and religion mix. What makes a human being? And who gives life? What’s going on with the maternal image?