Beautiful beasts

“Shrek 2” is “Meet the Parents” for computer-animated ogres, and once again the cat gets the biggest laughs. The frisky feline of the moment is a swashbuckling Puss-in-Boots, voiced by Antonio Banderas in a sendup of his Zorro character.

For reasons to be explained later, Puss is hired to vanquish everyone’s favorite big ugly green dude, Shrek (again voiced by Mike Myers), but soon he’s hanging out with the good guys, causing a jealous Donkey (Eddie Murphy, again better heard than seen) to complain, “I’m sorry, the position of annoying talking animal has already been taken.”

Puss’ swordsmanship isn’t what’s funny as much as his basic kitty-ness, used to maximum effect when he melts his potential foes’ hearts by opening those big, liquid saucer eyes. Movies almost never do right by cat characters – the feline-bashing “Cats and Dogs” being the most egregious example – so give the “Shrek” team a big bowl of vittles for coming up with Puss.

Plus, there’s a good hairball gag (so to speak).

Otherwise, “Shrek 2” is back to its old fairytale-deconstructing tricks, though this time contemporary pop culture is a more prominent reference point than those “Once upon a time” days. Having been married at the end of the immensely popular “Shrek” (2001), Shrek and his similarly green and ungainly bride, Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz), know the honeymoon is over when they’re invited back to the Kingdom of Far Far Away to meet her folks, the King (John Cleese) and Queen (Julie Andrews).

The problem is that the royal parents assume that the preening Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) – whose blond locks wave in slow motion – is the one who broke the curse on their tower-confined daughter, so they’re expecting to greet Fiona in her Barbie-thin mode alongside her new hunk o’ man, not a pair of lime-colored ogres. The meeting doesn’t go well.

Adding a further rotten apple to the barrel is that the Fairy Godmother (Jennifer Saunders, putting her icy “Absolutely Fabulous” delivery to good use) is Prince Charming’s mom, and she’s vexed and ready to hex. Soon she’s pressuring the nattering King to help get Shrek out of the way (hence the call on Puss).

All in all, it’s a solid if not groundbreaking yarn, though a post-matrimonial story may have less innate kid appeal than the original princess-rescuing tale.