Shrek 2 (top) and The Incredibles (bottom) are the films to beat.

Shrek 2 (3-1) DreamWorks. There’s nothing like a good sequel, and there have been damned few of them in Hollywood history. Shrek 2 is actually one of them. This second outing was highly popular with audiences and reviewers as well as a real ogre at the box office. The first film gives this sequel an excellent pedigree, and enough new characters are introduced to balance the loss of Eisn - uh, I mean Lord Farquaad, the original villain of Shrek. Yet, it’s the loss of Farquaad that gives this film its problem. For those animation fans and insiders who enjoyed the anti-Disney stylings and in-jokes that powered the first film, there is an emptiness to Shrek 2 that is instead filled by what is becoming a standby under Katzenberg and Spielberg: reliance on audience knowledge of pop references and hip parodies of Hollywood culture, expensive brand names and stores, etc. This is animation for fans of Entertainment Tonight and it is no surprise that the recently released DVD has a parody of American Idol tacked on to it; it’s perfectly in keeping with the current humor at DreamWorks.

While Shrek 2 is nowhere near as guilty as Shark Tale, these devices are cute rather than imaginative, the humor forced rather than natural, and the laughs depend on an audience’s capacity to recognize the jokes. This is the only flaw in the film, and the admirable animation covers it only in part. A possible win is not Far Far Away, but sequels typically have a tough time at the Oscars, and Shrek 2 will struggle against the super powered competition from Pixar.

The Incredibles (2-5) Disney/Pixar. The odds-on fave for Best Animated Picture and the probable winner. Director Brad Bird is increasingly a force to be reckoned with, and this is his best effort to date. The Incredibles utilizes a different set of references than DreamWork’s Shrek 2 or Shark Tale. Where the latter films contain references to more modern cinematic entertainment and popular culture, Bird has constructed a film that references the 1960s Silver Age comics and the James Bond films of the same era. The difference is: the allusions in the DreamWorks films are simply pop adornments dressing up the underlying stories. Bird has actually written an original epic by recreating the comic books that inspired the film, as if he possessed the archetypal template. The spirit of those beloved pulps is inseparable from the story, which is as seamlessly crafted as anything devised by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in their heydays. The characters are extremely likable, the animation (courtesy of new software programs Bend-Bows and Squetch) is a marvel, and the reviews and box office are super heroic indeed.

Pixar will likely walk away with the Oscar this year, and it will be a well-earned win as well as a lesson for the technical wizards behind The Polar Express and the Beverly Hills hipsters behind Shrek 2 and Shark Tale. Great story has to be merged with great effects, and the coolest, most ironic in-jokes in the animated world will never be mistaken for originality. That being said, kudos to all films that qualified this year. To those whose mantels are empty after the Big Show, well, by all means try again. At the time of this writing the top three pictures being attended by audiences across the nation’s multiplexes are all animated; this is certainly the time to get new ideas to the big screen.

OSCAR RECAP:

Final three nominees: The Incredibles; Shrek 2; Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
Winner for Best Animated Feature: The Incredibles

Martin “Dr. Toon” Goodman is a longtime student and fan of animation. He lives in Anderson, Indiana.