Shrek The Third by
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Ever since making its debut in 1998, Dreamworks' animation wing has seemed more like Pixar's snotty-nosed younger brother than a genuine rival. While John Lasseter’s company soared with the intelligent likes of Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, Dreamworks seemed content to snigger away with the gag-filled and pop culture-obsessed Madagascar and Shark's Tale. The only time the studio has come close to emulating the sophistication of their Toy Story counterparts is with the Shrek franchise, which provided a satisfying story as well as some neat joke. However, if Shrek the Third is anything to go by, even the green meany has now fallen in line with the rest of the studio's under-whelming output.
Picking up where Shrek 2 left off, the film finds our monstrous hero (Mike Myers) ready to leave the kingdom of Far Far Away with wife Fiona (Cameron Diaz). However, just as he’s beginning to look forward to returning to his vermin-infested swamp home, Shrek finds out two earth-shattering pieces of news: not only is he going to be a father, but he’s also first in line to the throne now that King Harold (John Cleese) has died. In a bid to avoid these regal responsibilities, Shrek decides to lump the kingship onto another unsuspecting soul and embarks upon a dangerous quest with Puss-In-Boots (Antonio Banderas) and Donkey (Eddie Murphy) to find the other possibility, Fiona’s cousin Arthur (Justin Timberlake).
It's a pleasingly simple but also fairly substantial set-up and the writers (all six of them - never a good sign) are to be applauded for genuinely finding new, mature ground for the franchise to tread. However, for all its ambition, Shrek the Third’s story is one that necessitates a damaging split in the plot. In order for Shrek to muse on his new-found responsibilities effectively, Fiona needs to be left alone in Far Far Away, and that means the writers must contrive something for her to do: in this case, thwart the evil Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) who has decided to claim his happily ever after and usurp the throne.
However, despite teaming up with a host of fairy tale bad guys (Captain Hook, enchanted trees, a Cyclops), Charming proves a disappointingly bland villain. Lacking the comic pomposity of Lord Farquaad or the pantomime schemary of the oddly-absent Fairy Godmother, Charming comes across as nothing but a whining idiot who only wants the throne to feed his hungry ego. Fiona hardly fares any better. The straight woman in the first two films, she is suddenly thrust onto leading lady territory here and, despite teaming up with fellow fairy-tale princesses Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty (voiced by some of Saturday Night Live‘s premier female talent), she proves an uninspired and boring character.
This is a problem that spreads to the Shrek strand as well. Timberlake’s Arthur is too much like Charming to convince as a hero, while Eric Idle's new age Merlin lacks the wackiness you'd expect from a former Monty Python member. Dull set-pieces including an overlong stay at a fairy-tale high school don't help matters, but more surprising is that the usually reliable Puss and Donkey struggle to make an impact. Reduced to sideline characters who do little besides throw in an occasional witty aside and, in one cumbersome plot development, swap bodies, they come to symbolise the film's, at times, workmanlike script.
It's on the familiar Dreamworks territory of short, sharp gags that the film falls back on then and thankfully this is where it redeems itself. Whether it's in The Gingerbread Man's life-flashing-before-his-eyes moment, a dream sequence in which Shrek is ambushed by baby ogres or a magnificently worked allusion to Paul McCartney's Frog Chorus, Shrek The Third has got just about enough postmodern, pop culture referencing gags to keep both kids and adults entertained. It's just a shame there's little of the same invention to be found elsewhere.
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