No originality + No plot + Annoying Characters= a very poor Shrek film, and a poor in general movie

Rating: 6/10 (1 July 2007)

Shrek was possibly the greatest animated film franchise of all time (money-wise anyway) until 3:50 p.m. today, when I started watching Shrek The Third after a lengthy advert prologue. The film started with Shrek and Fiona getting into a variety of funny situations in order to look after the kingdom of Far Far Away for an ill King Harold. The film then goes on to a weirdly funny death scene where Kind Harold dies. After being proclaimed by King Harold that he wants Shrek to be his heir Shrek decides the burden of becoming king is far too great so he, Donkey and Puss go off on an epic (10 minute) quest to find the next heir to the throne, an annoying, obviously unpopular teenager called Arthur (or Artie...hmmm). That's the plot, except for the return journey and the climatic (yawn) end scene obviously copied from the second film.
The film is not poorly executed (the animation is great and there are some funny moments) however there is so little plot that the film becomes dull and plastic. The majority of the characters are incredibly annoying, especially the whining, whinging princesses' who add little, as well as the pointless cameo from Eric Idle as Merlin (who's main purpose appears to cut the action and film time down about 20 minutes) and Justin Timberlake, who played a stereotypical underdog role, which seemed completely out of place in a franchise usually seen as ridiculous and not serious at all.
The major character flaw was that there were too many characters, with too little screen time meaning none of the characters (except for Donkey or puss) were actually likable. By the end of the film you realise that Arthur (Justin Timberlake) starts out as a major character, but in fact he becomes incredibly minor and unimportant. In fact the film would have been fine if many of the characters were not there at all. Many just seemed to have been added into the story to forward the plot in someway, a lazy attempt at disguising the non-existence of the plot itself.
Also the film relies too much on the other two pictures. In reality Shrek 3 is pretty much an add on to the second film. There is so little difference between the films (other than the watery plot) that I began to wonder whether Shrek 3 is comprised of rejected concepts from the second installment (ah-ha dreamworks your devious plan has been un-earthed). What especially annoyed me about this film (apart from Justin Timberlake's and Eric Idle's pointless appearances) was the lack of originality. The Shrek films are renowned for an original perspective of ideas which are conventional stories taken apart for comic effect. This film had no evidence of this, not a single one, except the perception of bratty teenagers, and bratty princesses, which were both stereotypical and completely humourless. The film took all the ideas from the first two films, and then took them for granted. Unfortunately because of its lack of any new ideas, the film became one-dimensional.
All in all while the animation was good and some of the scenes being quite funny, the film was ruined by its incredible lack of originality, as well as its annoying sub-characters and non-existent plot.