Let's Quit While We're Ahead, Shall We?

Rating: 2/10 (10 June 2007)

Like most movies that comes in threes, "Shrek the Third" is a waste of time. Right now, there hasn't been an interesting flick during the first half of this year, as it was last year, but now I am waiting to see "Knocked Up," an original adult comedy amid the needless three-quels of "Shrek the Third," "Spiderman 3," "Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End," and "Ocean's Thirteen."
The original "Shrek" was an uncomplicated charmer. "Shrek 2" was even funnier, adding touches of glitz and glamour with the kingdom Far, Far Away looking like a Hollywood Scene, and "Shrek the Third" is a forced, convoluted mess. And for the first time did I actually fall asleep through bits and pieces of this yawner.
Okay. So we all know about Shrek (Mike Myers), Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz), talkative Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and swashbuckling Puss N Boots (Antonio Banderas) and all the happy things that will happen to them at the end of the movie. In the first and second movies, they all seemed happy working together, but now they seem bored and would like to just get together for lunch. The late great film critic Gene Siskel quoted, "Is the movie more interesting than a documentary of the same actors having lunch?" Well, let them have lunch!
In "Shrek 2," we also got to know King Harold (John Cleese) and Queen Lillian (Julie Andrews), Fiona's parents. They return, but Cleese is wasted as the King Frog that ahem, croaks, for hokum, so that Shrek becomes King. For more hokum, we get a new character, a nerdy picked-on teenager named Artie (Justin Timberlake, infamous for ripping Janet Jackson's outfit on the air for the Half-Time Superbowl Show three years ago, which Jackson called "a wardrobe malfunction.") whom Shrek wants to crown King. Timberlake does not sing and his nerd image contrasts the Super Bowl image he gained notoriety for. Other returnees from Shrek 2 include Prince Charming (Rupert Everett), reduced from prince to dance hall entertainer, Doris the barmaid (Larry King, better and shorter in his cameo from the previous movie) who has more to do, but not so interesting, and the three blind mice. Regis Philbin has a cameo as Mabel the ugly barmaid, but his voice is muffled and unrecognizable from the Regis we all know and love on television.
And if you think that's enough, there are more needless characters on the way. We get Cleese's Monty Python cohort Eric Idle as the bumbling wizard Merlin who unfunnily switches the voices and personalities of Donkey and Puss-In-Boot as a gimmick. Idle probably did this movie as a favor for Cleese, or was it as excuse to hang around with him. Come on, you two guys can go out for Bangers and Mash for lunch. Then for good measure we get Saturday Night Live and Secondy City comics Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, and Amy Sedaris as fairy tale heroines who also have nothing else to do but look good and act like Charlie's Angels (starring Cameron Diaz) in the showdown to rescue Shrek and save Far,Far Away from a takeover by the arrogant Prince Charming.
The biggest gimmick of the movie are the ogre babies and the half-donkey, half-dragon babies. The latter babies came at the end credits of "Shrek 2," when Donkey's lady-love dragon returned to greet Donkey, and they were lovable there. Even the babies are uncute and annoying here, with belching, crying, and vomiting constantly.
No Shrek movie is complete without a closing number. Eddie Murphy gets to perform Sly and the Family Stone's 1970 hit "Thank You Fa Lettingme Be Mice Elf Again," with the credits in the form of baby blocks, and only Donkey and Puss N Boots dance. It's more fun to watch the whole cast and more fairy tale characters sing and dance to "I'm a Believer" and Antonio Banderas does a wonderful job singing "Living La Vida Loca," getting all the other characters to dance.
So now, do we see what happens when things come in threes? Boredom, that's what. Even worse, there could be a Shrek 4 or 5 for the little kids only, and not for adults as well, like Shrek 1 or 2. Adults need to be entertained with animation as well, but now "Shrek the Third" seems like kiddie matinée fodder.