Sometimes I feel pop culture has left me behind. Digitally animated films are a case in point.

Everyone I know loves Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Shrek, Shrek 2, A Bug's Life, Monster's Inc., Ice Age, etc. Me? I find these films fair to middling. (Monsters Inc. is my favorite of the bunch.)

Part of the problem is that I don't love digital animation as much as everyone else does. You've heard me complain — ad nauseum — about the shoddy digital effects in feature films (particularly Attack of the Clones and Peter Jackson's Helms Deep); imagine how I must feel watching entire films of digital animation!

I prefer — strongly — traditional cel-painted animation. (Note that I'm not saying traditional animation is better, just that I prefer it.)

Last night, Kris and I watched Shrek 2, a film that received rave reviews from friends and from critics. Predictably, I was unimpressed.

I did laugh, and was particularly amused by the throwaway gags, those bits that parodied pop culture (especially obscure aspects of pop culture). And the scene where Puss-In-Boots introduction is marred by a hairball had me in stitches (one of the funniest things I've seen since The Princess Bride's R.O.U.S.!). But despite the grin on my face, the film left me with a hollow feeling.

As with most films that I'm unable to buy into, I'm frustrated by the scripts to these animated features. Sure, the jokes are funny, written with a deft hand, but the rest of the dialogue is generally flat and trite, and the situations themselves generic. The plots are mundane, the barest threads upon which to hang the beautiful digital animation and the funny visual jokes.

The problem with Shrek 2 isn't so much the plot — though it is pretty lame, despite some cute twists (the Fairy Godmother as manipulative evil bitch) — as it is the dialogue. The jokes are funny, sure, but the rest of the script is mediocre at best, and often just bad. Also, there were too many vignettes that played as music videos.

I didn't hate Shrek 2, just as I didn't hate Peter Jackson's Helms Deep. But I didn't find other film up to the enormous hype. They're both average films billed as classics.

(What I really wanted to see last night was Mean Girls but, alas, it wasn't available when we wanted it.)

On this day at foldedspace.org

2005 — Bird Photographs   As you may have suspected, my interest in birdwatching is intersecting my interest in photography. I want to make photographs of birds. Unfortunately, I can't find a good way to do so.

2003 — Three Men and Adena   In which my wife is right.