Shrek 2

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Shrek 2 is a 2004 animated fantasy comedy film and a sequel to Shrek. It was the highest grossing film of 2004 and got nominated Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards, losing to The Incredibles.

Fiona, now an ogress and Shrek's wife, travels with him to the kingdom of Far Far Away, ruled by her parents. Meanwhile, Prince Charming, who was supposed to rescue Fiona instead of Shrek, desires the kingdom for himself, helped by his mother, the Fairy Godmother. He first tries to dispose of Shrek by deploying Puss-in-Boots, a famous ogre hunter, but the cat ends up becoming friends with Shrek and Donkey. After Shrek drinks a potion that temporarily makes him and Fiona human, the Fairy Godmother makes Charming pose as the human Shrek.

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Tropes used in Shrek 2 include:

• Affably Evil: The Fair Godmother, apart from being just as disliking of ogres as everybody else in the world, on the whole is pretty nice - but it seems that's just her public facade.
• Ambiguously Gay: Prince Charming. Being voiced by the openly gay Rupert Everett doesn't help. There is a huge Parental Bonus in the scene where he talks to his mother about his reluctance to marry Fiona. Apparently, he is not interested in women at all...
  • Some of Puss' lines make the viewer wonder as well, though that's more like Ambiguously Bi, since unlike Charming he does show interest in women.
• Are We There Yet?: Donkey on the way to Far, Far Away at the beginning of the movie.

Shrek: The Land of Far, Far Away, donkey? That's where we're going! Far...FAR...away.

• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Mongo the Giant Gingerbread Man.
• Become a Real Boy: Parodied, with a Yank the Dog's Chain thrown in.

zap* Pinocchio: I'm a real boy! ... [singing] I'm real, I'm real, I'm - zap* Pinocchio: ...Aww!

• Berserk Button: "Not the gumdrop button!"
• Big No: From Shrek and Gingy when Mongo falls into the moat. In slow motion, even.
• Comedic Sociopathy: The opening montage is quite sweet and funny. But during the parody of From Here to Eternity, Shrek unintentionally ends up frolicking with a lookalike of the Little Mermaid. Fiona's response? She throws Ariel back into the sea, where she gets eaten by sharks. Neither ogre shows much concern about this.
  • A milder example: Immediately following that scene, the newlyweds enjoy a mud bath... lit up by the glow of several fairies trapped in jars. To add insult to injury, Shrek and Fiona playfully begin farting, much to the discomfort of the contained fairies.
    • In all fairness, Shrek and Fiona never do worse than this, but it does display a certain disregard for other people.
• Cuffs Off, Rub Wrists
• Cuteness Proximity: Invoked intentionally by Puss-in-Boots' as his ultimate weapon, used to devastating effect - see Puppy Dog Eyes.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Puss invokes this directly as a matter of honor.
• Diegetic Switch: The Fairy Godmother sings "Holding Out For A Hero" for Fiona and Charming ... which becomes the background music for Shrek, Donkey, and Puss Storming the Castle.
• Drag Queen: Kind of inverted - in the Poison Apple, the barwoman is an Ugly Sister and she really is technically a woman but her face is effectively a man's and she is even voiced by a man (Larry King in the USA, Johnathan Ross in the UK).

King: Excuse me, I'm looking for the ugly step-sister...? [Doris turns around to show a woman whose face is remarkably male with poorly applied makeup] King: Ah...there you are!

• • Especially ironic considering that in the pantomimes of Cinderella, the Ugly Sisters are traditionally played by men in drag.
• Dramatic Irony: Shrek wasn't the "hero" the Fairy Godmother's song was about. In fact, given her decidedly unheroic intentions, the choice of song itself can only be seen as deeply cynical.
• Easy Come, Easy Go: Pinocchio in Become a Real Boy shown above.
• Everything's Even Worse with Sharks: The fate of the Captain Ersatz Little Mermaid in the opening sequence...
• Fairy Godmother: Is actually the antagonist.
• Fantastic Racism: The Fairy Godmother comes across as one of these, having a narrow-minded opinion of ogres, whom she percieves as monsters who are villains. Shrek manages to prove her wrong.
• Foreshadowing: The lady-frog in The Poison Apple asking the King of Far Far Away if she's seen him before.
• Funny Background Event: After The Fairy Godmother catches Shrek and co. spying on them, you can see some local Knights giving the Headless Horseman a sobriety test just before Shrek and his pals break past them. What's particularly amusing is that they appear to be giving him the "touch your nose" test. You know, to a man who has no head...
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: Probably unintentional, but Far Far Away's postal service and police department being named F.F.A.P.S. and F.F.A.P.D. are hard to miss.
• Gilligan Cut: After Shrek, Fiona and Donkey are invited to Far Far Away:

Shrek: We're not going, and that's final! Cut to the last of the luggage being loaded

• Good Is Not Nice: Again, Fairy Godmother.
• Good Times Montage: The opening sequence.
• Heroic Sacrifice: The gingerbread giant, and King Harold.
• Hoist By Her Own Petard: Fairy Godmother.
• I'm Melting: Giant Gingerbread Man's fatal weakness...he dissolves in milk.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: The Mooks in the potion factory start shooting at Shrek, who is barely moving due to running against a conveyor belt. None of them hit.
• Improvised Zipline: Prince Charming uses one during his opening montage
• Indy Hat Roll: Puss-in-Boots during the scene in the potion factory pulls this off, complete with requisite hat-grab.
• Instant Plastic Surgery: The Happily Ever After potion is able to transform Shrek and Fiona into humans, and Donkey into a stallion. Only lasts for a day, unless sealed with true love's kiss by the stroke of midnight. At the end of the movie, Shrek tells Fiona that he would stay human forever if it would make her happy. Fiona thinks about it, touched that Shrek would sacrifice his identity for her, but says that she married an ogre, and intends to keep it that way.
  • What happens to Dragon under the effect of this potion anyway?
• Kill It with Water: the Heroic Sacrifice of Gingy's giant.
• Light Is Not Good: The Fairy Godmother and Prince Charming
• Love Potion: Fiona's fairy godmother orders the king to pour it into Fiona's drink so that she will fall in love with Prince Charming instead of Shrek.
• Man Child: Prince Charming.
• Moral Dissonance: See Comedic Sociopathy above.
• My Card: The Fairy Godmother's card - also a means of communication.
• Parental Bonus: Many.
  • "That bush that looks just like Shirley Bassey..."
• Perspective Magic + Eureka Moment: After breaking out of Far Far Away prison, Gingy's standing on a parapet (with the Far Far Away castle far off in the distance behind him) gives Shrek an idea how they will go about Storming the Castle.
• Precious Puppies: Fiona's Bichon.
• Prince Charmless: Prince Charming.
• Rocky Roll Call: During the dinner scene with Fiona's parents:

Queen: Harold! Fiona: Shrek! Shrek: Fiona! King: Fiona! Fiona: Mom! Queen: Harold! Donkey: Donkey!

• Separated by a Common Language: The slightly, er- intellectually subnormal giant gingerbread man raises eyebrows in Scotland, where the word "mongo" is an extremely offensive pejorative term for someone who is mentally handicapped.
• Shout-Out: Probably too many to count, but once to Garfield when Puss mutters into his milk "I hate Mondays."
  • During Shrek and Fiona's honeymoon, they receive a ring with text that glows when it is heated. Later during the same honeymoon, Fiona removing something covering lower part of her loved one's mouth to kiss him while he is hanging from a tree certainly bears a striking resemblance to a certain crawly character.
• Sitting Sexy on a Piano: The Fairy Godmother does this at one point.
• Sorry I Left the BGM On: It turns out that the voice over narration describing Charming's quest is done by Charming while on the quest.
• That Poor Cat: When the "Happily Ever After" potion takes effect on Shrek and he faints, we hear a cat howl... presumably because Shrek landed on Puss-In-Boots when he passed out.
• Third-Act Misunderstanding
• Took a Shortcut: In a non-video game example, Shrek, Donkey, and Fiona have to travel to the Kingdom of Far, FAR Away, which apparently takes an exceedingly long time. Yet when Shrek is arrested after drinking the Happily Ever After Potion, his whole gang back at The Swamp (where it's already getting dark) witness this on television and get to Far Far Away during the same evening, well before midnight.
  • Perhaps they rode in on Dragon, which would explain how she managed to show up at the end. Or it's not that far, but it took so long for Shrek, Fiona, and Donkey to get there because the carriage was so slow.
• Victoria's Secret Compartment: From which the Fairy Godmother draws the Love Potion.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Everybody loves the Fairy Godmother - she seems quite nice and she's very famous for her potions and happy endings.
• White Stallion: Donkey, after drinking the Happily Ever After potion. It doesn't stick.
• You Shall Not Pass: Puss-in-Boots holds off a pack of guards as Shrek rushes to stop the Fairy Godmother's evil plot, in payment of his debt to Shrek. He's not honestly in much danger from them, but that makes him holding them all off no less impressive, especially for a normal-sized housecat.

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