As clever, but not as funny as the first two

Rating: 6/10 (3 June 2007)

Shrek The Third is another entertaining romp through the erstwhile Hollywood of Far Far Away with a few laughs for adults and a few more for kids. Like all of the films in this series, it has a big and good heart, and occasionally pays homage to or pokes fun at modern films. Unlike the previous films, however, Shrek III is not a source of non-stop hilarity, and contains a little more thematic content.
Shrek finds himself inheriting his father-in-law's crown and learns that Fiona is pregnant. Predictably, both of these eventualities play pretty dissonantly on the big green guy's insecurities, and he goes a-questing to locate the next-in-line of succession - a young, dejected, high school kid. Meanwhile, charming has developed even more of an attitude problem, and is putting together a whole battalion of people with grudges.
One of the themes of the first two Shrek films was 'don't judge a book by its cover'. Shrek III takes the theme a little farther and puts a different spin on it. The lesson learned here is "don't judge yourself superficially." And it works. My rating of six is based solely on the entertainment value of the film. This film is not quite as well-paced and well-directed as the previous two films, and Charming is simply not the heavy-weight heavy that his mom was. Nevertheless, it's still worth a look, and still carries positive messages entertainingly.