The Good: Can be fun with friends if you intend on not taking the game seriously, the controls function, the characters play differently.
The Bad: A serious button masher, individual character advancing areas have finicky controls, awful voice acting, annoying one liners, horrible camera, terrible graphics, pointless side missions.
Before I go into my review, here's where I stand on the movie Shrek 2. I have not seen it in a really long time, but when I did see it, I knew I hated it. I actually liked 3 and 4 much better than it. If I saw it know, I probably would like it quite a bit, considering 3 was awful and 4 was just okay. Now that we've got that covered, let's review the movie tie in videogame that pretty much everyone knows how it's going to turn out. Now, I'm not going to critique the story because this game has nothing to do with the movie. That can turn out great if the gameplay holds up. In this case, it doesn't.
Let's start with the controls. They are the best part of the game, but it really isn't saying a whole lot. You move, attack, jump, and, depending on the character, use a special move. They are pretty responsive. There are two negatives to this though. One is using a certain character to advance through an area. Basically, there a certain sections where certain characters have to do things to get the team to the next level (Shrek picks things up, Donkey kicks things over, Puss in Boots walks across rope, etc.). When you get to these areas, the controls can get finicky. At the spots, you have to be very precise in order to carry out the mission successfully, especially Puss in Boots. If you have to jump over something that can kill you while tightrope walking, you have to be very precise in how you carry out your command. It's not a big problem, but it is annoying.
The other negative to the controls is a pretty big issue. It is a huge button masher. If you are up against enemies, just mash on the B button until they're defeated. There's no skill, no strategy, no timing. It's just mindless combat that takes little to no effort in doing.
The characters in this game are hit and miss. They hit in gameplay. Each character feels distinguishly different and useful in different ways. They all have fair stats against each other. Shrek doesn't seem to have a big advantage over Fiona, nor the other way around. It helps keep the game fair. The negative is, well, everything else. The voice acting is horrible, especially since they aren't the same voice actors as in the movie. They all just sound strange and annoying. What also doesn't help is the constant one-liners. During gameplay, the characters will say about one of six phrases to the bad guy to taunt them or something. Since there are so few, you will get really irritated after a while. And there not even clever. For example, Shrek will yell something like, "I am not called punchy!" It's not the exact quote, word for word, but it is of that caliber.
Now it's time for me to completely trash the game (yay!). Let's talk about the camera. It is awful. It's pulled way back up in the sky at a weird angle. It makes it hard to see what enemies are coming after you and even who your character is. If they pulled it in closer and was directly over the characters, then it would be pretty good. But it's not. We got this…
The graphics are about as deformed as graphics can get. Every character looks wrong, especially Puss in Boots, who looks nothing like he should in the movie. The shading is off, the textures are off, the animations are off. No one looks like they're supposed to. You're probably thinking I shouldn't trash the graphics, because the Gamecube is an old console, but I have to. There are Gamecube games that look great, like Super Mario Sunshine, which was made over two full years before Shrek 2 (Mario Sunshine was August 25th, 2002, and Shrek 2 was May 3rd, 2004). It's no excuse. Even for a movie tie-in.
The side missions are stupid and pointless. They all feel pretty much the exact same, except you goal. You have to beat the crap out of something, but the objective is slightly different. For example, you have to beat chickens to make them fly away, you have to beat chickens to get them back in their pen, beat rats to find an object, beat rats to protect someone, etc. They always involve mashing the B button and killing a lot of enemies to do one easy task. And what reward do you get for completing a side mission? Advancing through the story, getting one step closer to getting the good ending (yes, this game has multiple endings). You don't feel like your accomplishing anything, you just feel like you're wasting time.
Overall, this was a very bad movie tie-in, but to be honest, that was kind of what I was expecting in the first place. The character abilities are cool, the controls function well (most of the time), and it can be fun with friends (Since it's four player co-op, and it's enjoyable to make fun of the game), but those few positives can't help the fact that this is a serious button masher with awful graphics, terrible voice acting, a dumb camera, and pointless side quests. If you are over at a friend's house and you are in the mood for laughing at something, then go ahead and play it. For everyone else, don't bother.