Shrek the Third

[Prashant]

"Shrek the Third" begins with a death, and from there the movie itself steadily dies.

 

The third instalment in this monster of an animated franchise still subverts the fairy tales we grew up knowing and loving, but it's smothered in a suffocating sense of been-there, done-that.

 

Thankfully, as the films go along, they rely less on gratuitous pop-culture references. And visually this "Shrek" is more dazzling than ever, especially in the realistic background details.

 

The water looks watery and the sand looks sandy and the trees look so lush and leafy you could practically jump out of your seat and climb into one of them. By now it's probably easy for all of us to take for granted how far CGI technology has come, and it's worth stopping to appreciate for a moment.

 

But part three also lacks the zip of its predecessors; it feels draggy and, at the same time, rushed. (At 86 minutes, it's also the shortest film in the series.) Except for a few moments here and there, such as Prince Charming's gleefully corny stage productions and a Gingerbread Man flashback montage, much of the original sense of ingenious fun is gone.

It doesn't help that so many tired "Shrek" wannabes, like "Hoodwinked" and "Happily N'Ever After," have been trotted out in recent years, making the real thing feel just as hackneyed. Chris Miller, previously a story artist, co-directed with animator Raman Hui. About a half-dozen people are credited as having contributed to the script, including Andrew Adamson, who directed the first two "Shrek" flicks. So there is a sense of consistency - it just doesn't feel all that fresh anymore.

 

This time, the lovably cranky ogre Shrek (voiced reliably as always by Mike Myers) struggles with the prospect of becoming king of Far, Far Away after the death of King Harold, the father of his bride, Fiona (Cameron Diaz). He'd rather stay home in the swamp, lazing around all day. (Why Fiona can't take over in a fairy-tale land where the all the other rules have been upended is never addressed. She is the more even-tempered and levelheaded of the two, after all. Perhaps if Hillary were president ....)

 

Anyway, Shrek sets out with his chatty sidekick Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and the suave Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas, still an adorable scene-stealer) to find the only other possible heir to the throne: the nerdy, insecure Artie, Fiona's teenage cousin, who is voiced by Justin Timberlake and looks like Corey Feldman.

 

Artie is always on the receiving end of Lancelot's athletic jousts and is otherwise the butt of everyone's jokes at his medieval high school - the irony being, of course, that Timberlake has long been the coolest kid in the class. So when Shrek and his pals show up and offer him the kingdom, he's only to happy to take it. At first.

 

Meanwhile, with hubby away, Fiona is left to defend the castle from Prince Charming (Rupert Everett), the vain former suitor she once jilted who has now come back to stage a bloody coup with a posse of vanquished villains (Captain Hook, the Evil Queen, etc.).

 

Fiona - who's pregnant with the baby Shrek isn't sure he's ready for - gets some unexpected help on her end from longtime damsels in distress Snow White (Amy Poehler), Cinderella (Amy Sedaris), Rapunzel (Maya Rudolph) and Sleeping Beauty (Cheri Oteri), as well as her mother, Queen Lillian (Julie Andrews).

 

It's a clever idea to have these characters transcend their stereotypes, but with the exception of Poehler's demanding diva, they all feel tossed in and underused. Like "Spider-Man 3," "Shrek the Third" throws more at us - including plenty of barf and flatulence jokes for the kids - but too little of it actually sticks.

 

 

Just found this on news:

 

"Shrek the Third" took in $122 million in its first weekend, breaking the franchise's own record for best debut ever for an animated film, according to studio estimates Sunday.

 

The latest adventure of the ogre shot past 2004's "Shrek 2," the previous record-holder for animated openings with $108 million.

 

Produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount, "Shrek the Third" was the third-biggest debut ever, coming in behind the $151.1 million haul of this month's "Spider-Man 3" and the $135.6 million gross of last summer's "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest."

 

Executives at DreamWorks Animation and Paramount had expected "Shrek the Third" to open more in range with the debut of "Shrek 2." Strong business from audiences across the board lifted "Shrek the Third" well above projections.

 

This movie is yet to be released here in India. Most probably it would be released on this Friday

[RiCkY]

I'm downloading it to see

hope it's good

[twistedxtemptation]

I can't exactly be bothered 2 c it.

I never have exactly liked the previous ones.

Quite boring.

[Quantum Media LLC]

not to be a penis head, but please post credentials or credits if you will on where you get your information, especially if you are copying and pasting from other sites

[Prashant]

sorry forgot to mention the credit

it goes to Moviepost.com

[rieLoves7]

havent seen the movie.. maybe i'll just get the dvd..

[PearlPalkia]

I love this movie. I saw and liked all of them! if you want to know anything i'll try to say it without spoiling the ending, which is weird

[karath]

according to my father, it was okay

[Gimpro]

It was mediocre at best.

 

Really a C movie, i was so terribly dissapointed. Everything that made the first one (and kinda the second one) so good was taken out.

[Geou]

I wanted to see this movie but never really got the chance. But it seems like it wasn't that great in any case...

[AJKING]

Ok... Thanks for the information i will see what its like for my self, ive never really got time

[wwe9112]

I wanted to see it but didnt. I'm buying it when it comes out on DVD.

[Tbone]

I haven't seen it yet.. it didnt really look all that good, and it sounds like (from the posts on this thread) it wasnt very good.

[Kim.com]

I found this movie terrible, some parts were amusing but that was it. I mean, It's the worst of the shrek installments.

[rod91]

Yeah... it wasn't as epic as the 1st or 2nd. Normally for triologies, it goes like this:

1st : Epic

2nd: Horrid

3rd: Good

 

Matrix was kinda like that

 

Shrek was more like:

1st: Epic

2nd: Okay

3rd: Ew :/

 

 

===Possible spoiler===

The ending was completely unsatisfying, they spend the whole movie building up for this epic battle and stuff... ends up with the conflict just going away with a couple "moving words"... I mean... come on :/