"Shrek the Third" Review

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

** stars (out of four)
93 Minutes, starts Friday, May 18th


I officially shrug and throw up my hands. I give up. The “Shrek” universe has simply not engaged me. I am not invested in any of the characters or situations. I am clearly in the minority in this, and I recognize that. But there is little I can do about it and still write an honest review. Fans of “Shrek” may very well enjoy this third outing with the characters and find my point of view mean-spirited. I know this, but I can only speak for myself, and on behalf of me, I simply don’t care about anything that takes place in “Shrek the Third.”

The first film, easily the best of the series, at least had the novelty of its setting and characters, and the incongruity of the modern pop culture references in its fantasy world. I enjoyed that film the first time I saw it, but further viewings did not deepen my appreciation for it, but rather made the movie’s methods and message all the more shallow. It has funny moments and a few memorable characters, but once you strip away the satirical window dressing, the plot is actually relatively standard stuff, with a climax held together by a textbook Silly Misunderstanding. Oh, how I tire of Silly Misunderstandings. They simply make the characters look all the dumber for engaging in them. So, naturally, the creators of the Shrek series have included one in every installment they’ve made so far.

“Shrek 2” was essentially a remake of the first film, with a similar message and storytelling techniques, again held together by that essential Silly Misunderstanding (which made Fiona look like a dope for not being able to recognize her husband when she saw him, whether or not he had become a human being). It introduced a few new characters (Puss in Boots being the most endearing and enduring of them), but otherwise it was a long way around for the core characters to end up, well, pretty much where they were the last time we saw them.

Now here is the third film, which tries somewhat to take a new approach and tell a different kind of story, but still feels less like a legitimate creative enterprise and more blatantly like a commercial one. This is our 2007 model Shrek, available for delivery to theatres and toy stores nationwide, just in time for the summer blockbuster season. Cynical? Perhaps. But the movie gives me little reason to be optimistic. There are some cute moments and more than a few chuckles, but any spark that was at the core of the project is gone. This is a movie that feels like it’s just going through the motions.

It doesn’t help that the basic traits which made the characters unique seem to have eroded. Shrek (voice of Mike Myers) has morphed from an alienated outsider with a kind soul to a simple everyman, the kind of guy you’d run into down at the bowling alley on Mondays. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the character’s essence seems to have gotten lost along the way, making Shrek positively bland in this third installment. Fiona (Cameron Diaz) is superficially given a more active role this time around, but her actual character has become sadly transparent - she’s practically a doting housewife, now. Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) have become so vapid and interchangeable, that when a magical mishap causes the two of them to switch bodies, it has no impact on the story whatsoever.

The plot: Fiona’s father, the King of Far, Far Away (John Cleese), passes away, in a scene that is drawn out for the sake of humor, and then makes a u-turn and apparently expects us to be touched. (Song played at the king’s funeral: “Live and Let Die.” No, really.) This leaves Shrek as the erstwhile king in his stead. But Shrek does not want to be king, and decides instead to seek out the other remaining heir, a young man named Arthur. No prizes for figuring out THAT reference.

Meantime, Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) is back, and reduced to doing musical theatre at a local pub. Um, okay. He plots to claim the throne of Far, Far Away, and sets in motion a clever, cunning and dastardly plan: He recruits other villains and they invade and take over by force when Shrek leaves. Well, okay, maybe it wasn’t exactly clever. Or even particularly cunning. But it was dastardly, oh yes, it was dastardly.

While on his journey, Shrek is struggling with questions of personal responsibility and acceptance, as he’s just found out that Fiona is pregnant, resulting in an odd scene where the characters almost get into a discussion of the birds and the bees, which will certainly set a few Family Values folks’ tails’ a-wagging. (As will a scene where two kids emerge from a smoke-filled wagon and say in classic stoner tone, “Hey, man, thanks for sharing the frankincense and myrrh.”) Shrek, Donkey and Puss find Arthur (Justin Timberlake) at a medieval high school, where he’s a little wimp who gets beaten up and mocked even by the biggest dweebs. So Shrek must convince him he would be a good king, convince himself he would be a good father, and save the kingdom from Charming’s clutches. That’s about it, really.

The movie is not completely without charm, of course. The animation is, as usual, excellent. There are several funny moments and lines (my personal favorite is Shrek describing how his father once tried to eat him: “I guess I should have seen it coming. He used to give me a bath in barbeque sauce and stick an apple in my mouth.”). I like the development of Fiona encouraging the damsels in distress to take matters into their own hands this time (including a brief shot of them burning their bras). And the ever-reliable Gingerbread Man gets a great moment where, as he’s being threatened, his life flashes before his eyes, oven and all.

But a few clever moments are not enough to give this “Shrek” a reason to exist, other than the money it will make and the franchise it will prolong. We introduce new characters to sell and further dilude the old ones. It doesn’t help that (spoiler alert) Shrek and Fiona actually have triplets, which means even more characters to keep track of and less screen time to define them in. The word is that “Shrek 4” will be the last in the series. This pronouncement does not upset me in the slightest. For whatever reason, this is one pop culture ride I just cannot go along with.