Shrek the Third: Movie Review (2007) by Christopher Smith

A piece of "Shrek"

Hollywood hasn’t run out of ideas — it just won’t risk bringing fresh ideas to the screen. In an effort to protect what’s increasingly a nine-figure investment, every new major release is second-guessed by legions of terrified executives, all fretting over how to protect the bottom line. The result? Too often, the films are rote, with audiences getting hammered with homogenization along the way.

Such is the case with "Shrek the Third," the third sequel to hit theaters in as many weeks, which features impressive animation and a few bright spots of humor, but mostly, it’s dull and unimaginative moviemaking, a sterile effort served cold to the masses.

From first-time directors Raman Hui and Chris Miller, the latter of whom co-wrote the script with Jeffrey Price, Peter Seaman and Aron Warner, the film’s thin, uninspired plot is nothing to pixilate your pants over.

After the death of King Harold (John Cleese), it’s revealed to Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz) and Shrek (Mike Myers) that Shrek is next in line to the throne. It’s a job Shrek doesn’t want — he is an ogre, after all — and so off he goes with Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Puss In Boots (Antonio Banderas, a highlight) to Worcestershire High School. There he hopes to find the next in line to the throne, Prince Artie (Justin Timberlake), and also to take his mind off the fact that Fiona is pregnant.

For a villain, the film offers up the weakest imaginable — Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) — whose shaggy blond blowout is the most threatening thing in the movie. It’s he who wants to be the king of Far Far Away, and he’s enlisted a formidable posse in Captain Hook, the Evil Queen, the Cyclops, Rumpelstiltskin and others to help him to that end.

Trouble is, by the film’s midpoint, few will care. Filled with the easiest laughs of all — fart and poop jokes — "Shrek the Third" is so disappointingly base, it underscores just how far we’ve come since Disney’s groundbreaking "Toy Story" hit theaters in 1995.

Back then, the wow-factor was everywhere onscreen, from the animation to the story to the characters. Great movies followed, including the original "Shrek," but now, after 12 years of Pentium-powered blockbusters, the animation no longer is the draw. It’s the script that matters, which is why this summer’s biggest animated thrill likely will come when "The Simpsons Movie" opens July 27.

That movie is appealing retro, wearing its crude animation like a badge. And yet no one will give a second thought about it. If the film is anything like the long-running television series on which it’s based — and there’s every reason to believe it will be — what its creators know is that good writing always will best technology.

At this point in the game, one expects DreamWorks should know this, but "Shrek the Third" suggests otherwise. In this movie, the focus is on creating believable expressions and hair that moves, not laughs that sustain and suspense that builds. In the next movie (a fourth is in production), let’s hope the focus goes back to the storyboard.

Grade: C