Negative film review of Shrek sends Twitter into a frenzy

‘Shrek is love, Shrek is life.’

Today marks the 20th anniversary for Shrek, a Dreamworks animated comedy which has become one of the most prevalent movies in pop culture. This anniversary has sparked nostalgia and joy for Smash Mouth and grumpy green ogre fanatics across the globe.

However, one film critic wasn’t such a big fan of the iconic animated film and decided to write an opinion piece on The Guardian. Film critic Scott Tobias called Shrek ‘an unfunny and overrated low for blockbuster animation’.

“Shrek is a terrible movie. It’s not funny. It looks awful. It would influence many unfunny, awful-looking computer-animated comedies that copied its formula of glib self-reference and sickly sweet sentimentality.”

In a matter of hours, the review was circulated around Twitter. It was shared almost 3,500 times. Most of the responses were very negative and fiercely loyal of the much-loved classic.

Once again I must remind you all that if you have a vague and unfounded dislike of something you can simply choose to not write an article in a national newspaper about it. https://t.co/C0orj4x7b2 — Robin Stevens (@redbreastedbird) May 18, 2021

Imagine waking up and thinking ‘you know what really needs taking down – that kids film from 20 years ago’https://t.co/RvmQpq4PL7 — Liam Thorp 💙 (@LiamThorpECHO) May 18, 2021

this the most disgusting headline i’ve ever seen https://t.co/kbI4CyS7EP — holly (@crueltyfreehols) May 18, 2021

One of the most liked tweets critising Tobias’ review was that of The Tab writer Harrison Brocklehurst who tweeted: “@ The Guardian, I’ll give you one hour to delete”. Brocklehurst then went on to write an article in retaliation to Scott’s opinion. The headline written was ‘Actually, Shrek is a timeless masterpiece and you can’t tell me otherwise’ stating he was so furious after reading the article that he had to write about it.

@ The Guardian, I’ll give you one hour to delete pic.twitter.com/IF647BZUaA — Harrison Brocklehurst (@harrisonjbrock) May 18, 2021

Once again, everyone from around the twitterverse stood in solidarity for a very unlikely cause. It just goes to show, if you haven’t got anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. In the famous words of Shrek himself: ‘That’ll do Donkey. That’ll do’.