dreamworks | the m0vie blog

New Escapist Column! On The Complicated Legacy of “Shrek”…

Posted on May 21, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the twentieth anniversary of Shrek, it seems like a reasonable opportunity to take a look back at the film and its sizable pop culture legacy.

Shrek emerged at the turn of the millennium as a response to the kind of animation that had dominated American cinema during the nineties. In contrast to the calculated earnestness and sincerity of the Disney Renaissance, and its many imitators, Shrek‘s irony and cynicism felt like a breathe of fresh air. It was a film that didn’t take itself too seriously, indulging in knowing jokes and winking references. It was a bold counter-cultural statement that nobody expected to succeed. However, it did succeed, and ironically became one of the defining films of the twenty-first century.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: animation, dreamworks, irony, legacy, pop culture, self-awareness, shrek | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Trial of the Chicago 7

Posted on September 25, 2020 by Darren

The Trial of the Chicago 7 is Aaron Sorkin’s second feature film as director, following on from Molly’s Game.

However, the project originated with Steven Spielberg. The finished film includes the Dreamworks logo. Watching the movie, it feels like Sorkin is channeling Spielberg, particularly with the film’s delicate balance of historical accuracy and its relatively heartening final act. Indeed, The Trial of the Chicago 7 feels like something of a companion piece to Spielberg’s most recent film, The Post. It is another movie about the troubled transition from the flawed utopian idealism of the sixties to the brutal political cynicism of the seventies.

Cycles of mistrust.

In many ways, The Trial of the Chicago 7 appeals to Sorkin’s strengths as a writer. After all, Sorkin rose to prominence as the writer of A Few Good Men, another court room drama. The basic premise of The Trial of the Chicago 7 involves placing a bunch of similar-but-distinct characters in a locked room together and focusing on the group dynamics, which provides a lot of space for Sorkin to demonstrate his skill with dialogue and characterisation. There’s a lot of clever detail and definition between the protagonists in The Trial of the Chicago 7.

To be fair, The Trial of the Chicago 7 suffers slightly from being a little heavy-handed in places. As with Spielberg and The Post, Sorkin is very much aware of the movie’s contemporary resonance and occasionally leans into it a little too eagerly. Beyond that, the depiction of events from the eponymous trial can occasionally seem a little episodic and haphazard. Still, there’s a lot to recommend The Trial of the Chicago 7, particular as an old-fashioned example of an ensemble historical drama.

Courting controversy.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Aaron Sorkin, dreamworks, Movie, netflix, non-review review, paramount, review, steven spielberg, the trial of the chicago 7 | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Penguins of Madagascar

Posted on November 30, 2014 by Darren

The Penguins of Madagascar is solid family entertainment. It does not rank among the best of Dreamworks’ animated output, nor among the year’s best animated films. However it is a fun adventure movie that moves along at just the right pace – allowing a number of action set-pieces and a solid cast carry most of the weight. The Penguins of Madagascar is fun and solid; it is arguably more fun and more solid than any of the three Madagascar movies that spawned this spin-off.

The Penguins of Madagascar is just what the doctor ordered with the holiday season approaching. It is a film that makes for a solid family diversion, a movie that will appeal to kids without pandering too heavily, and will acknowledge the adults in the audience without losing focus. It is an enjoyable romp, one that delivers almost perfectly on what it sets out to do. It isn’t transcendental or brilliant in the way that The Lego Movie was, but it is more than merely functional.

Cheesy? Sure.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: animation, comedy, dreamworks, film, Movie, non-review review, penguins, penguins of madagascar, review | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Mr. Peabody & Sherman

Posted on January 26, 2014 by Darren

Mr. Peabody & Sherman is solid family entertainment. Too scattershot and inconsistent to really rank among the best of the Dreamworks animated feature films, it does benefit from an endearing energy and momentum – as well as a charming central performance from Ty Burrell as the eponymous super-inventor dog genius. It’s perfectly inoffensive fun that manages to get quite a few laughs, even if it doesn’t tug the heart strings quite as well as it might want to.

A dog and his boy…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: animation, doctor who, dreamworks, film, mister peabody, Movie, mr. peabody, mr. peabody and sherman, mr. peaboyd & sherman, non-review review, review, sherman, time travel | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Turbo

Posted on October 6, 2013 by Darren

Turbo is the best animated movie of 2013, well worth coming out of your shell to see. It’s probably the best Dreamworks film since Kung-Fu Panda and the best CGI animated feature since Toy Story 3. Indeed, Turbo manages to evoke a lot of the charming early Pixar films, in particular channelling Ratatouille, as we follow the adventures of one common unloved animal who decides that “good enough” is not quite good enough.

Stop the clock…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: animation, arts, dreamworks, Indianapolis 500, kung-fu panda, Kurtwood Smith, michael pena, Movies, paul giamatti, Ratatouille, ryan reynolds, Snail, Tito, toy story 3, Turbo | Leave a comment »

Watch! The Fifth Estate Trailer!

Posted on July 17, 2013 by Darren

The summer’s barely over, but we’re in Oscar trailer season. Or, more accurately, Benedict Cumberbatch season. Yesterday we had our first look at Twelve Years A Slave. Today, it’s The Fifth Estate, the film looking at Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Cumberbatch is interesting here, with his bleached long hair quite a departure from what we’ve come to expect from the actor, and his Australian accent somewhat warping his recognisable deep voice.

The film itself looks interesting, if only because the material is so recent and so controversial. Given that popular culture has yet to make a judgement on Assange, it’ll be intriguing to see what Bill Condon’s biography offers. The cast does look superb, though.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Assange, Benedict Cumberbatch, Bill Condon, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, dreamworks, Fifth Estate, Julian Assange, Wikileaks | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Shrek

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Darren

I caught Shrek again at the weekend, and I’m surprised how well it still holds up. Of course, part of my concern was that the sequels might have somehow retroactively impacted on my opinion of the original film, but I’m always a little hesitant to return to films I greatly enjoyed when I was younger – afraid that they might have been superseded by movies I’ve seen in the years since, or perhaps victim to slightly changing tastes. To be honest, it help up very well, and I was genuinely reminded of why I enjoyed it so much over a decade ago.

A fairy tale romance?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: animation, disney, dreamworks, Fairy tale, film, Movie, non-review review, review, shrek, shrek (2000) | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Monsters vs. Aliens

Posted on July 7, 2011 by Darren

I do quite like Monsters vs. Aliens, even if it feels like it’s trying to do too many vastly different things are once. It’s too goofy and silly to be a genuinely emotional morality tale about appreciating those different than us, while also being too sentimental to work as a sort of a goofy hokey monster mash nostalgia trip. One gets the sense that it could have been a much better film had it opted for one approach rather than the other, instead of trying to straddle the middle ground between them. It’s a shame, because it has some genuinely impressive sequences and warm sense of respect and good humour for all those classic creature features, but it just ends up feeling too much like a standard cookie-cutter modern animated film.

It's a Monster Mash!

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Amazing Colossal Man, animation, arts, dr. strangelove, dreamworks, films, hugh laurie, Monsters Vs Aliens, Movies, non-review review, paul rudd, Reese Witherspoon, review, Seth Rogen | Leave a comment »

Farewell to Nerds: The Big Studios & Comic Con…

Posted on June 21, 2011 by Darren

Last year, around this time, I was discussing how great it was to be a nerd or a geek. Hell, Comic Con in San Diego seemed like an obligatory stop-off point for the major studios promoting their latest blockbusters to an overly geeky crowd, debuting the trailer for Tron: Legacy or announcing the cast of The Avengers, not to mention footage and panels based around any number of big-screen blockbusters designed to cater towards the geeks and nerds in the movie-going audience. So it feels like a rather dramatic shift that very few of the major movie studios appear to be planning much for the iconic (or, at least, briefly iconic) Hall H in San Diego this year.

Does this mean that the era of the geek is over?

Will Stars stop Trekking to Hall H?

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: appeal, audience, box office, Christopher Nolan, comic con, comiccon, dreamworks, fans, geeks, hollywood, jon favreau, nerds, New York Times, San Diego, San Diego Comic-Con International, scott pilgrim vs. the world, tron: legacy, universal studios, weinstein company | 52 Comments »

Non-Review Review: How To Train Your Dragon

Posted on June 2, 2011 by Darren

How To Train Your Dragon is, at its core, the story of a boy and his dog. Except his dog happens to be a dragon. It is a well-cast, well-made and well-written little film that actually manages to have a lot more emotional depth than the majority of Dreamworks films, even if it doesn’t quite approach the wonderful sophistication that Pixar manage to produce about once a year. It’s big, it’s bold and it’s fun – a wonderfully crafted piece of family entertainment.