An ogre by any other name smells just as sweet

Rating: 8/10 (19 May 2007)

The most impressive thing about the third Shrek movie is that it doesn't stink. It is, after all, not only a sequel but also the third in a series that prides itself in its clever wit and relevance. I was hoping that Shrek the Third would be close to the first two, but I didn't honestly think it would have enough juice to really slay me in my seat. Er, metaphorically speaking.
But Shrek 3 IS fun. It's been three years since the second one, and Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, and Cameron Diaz have lower Q ratings nowadays. Were kids going to swarm the theater for the further adventures of the giant green ogre, or was the series played out? You'd assume the latter, given kids' attention spans and the fact that there's other kid-oriented stuff coming out.
Had I disliked the movie, I could have called the movie "Dreck"; even better, if there'd been some romance between Shrek and his never-seen mom, I could call it "Oedipus Shrek." But geez, I liked it. Now what the heck am I supposed to say about it? How about just "What the Shrek is going on here?" Why must they toy with me so? Shrek (Myers) is tapped to become the new king of Far, Far Away when the king (John Cleese) falls ill. But the Shrek with that, says the green blob. There's another heir, he learns, so he, Donkey (Murphy), and Puss (Antonio Banderas) set off to find Arthur, a mopey high school misfit voiced by Justin Timberlake. (Note: I knew Timberlake was in the movie, and I thought he was Arthur's voice, but Artie sounded... well, like a high school kid, maybe even younger.) Meanwhile, Shrek's absence gives good ol' Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) the chance to take over Far, Far Away and RULE! Also aiding Shrek are his pals from other fairy tales, such as the Gingerbread Man, Pinocchio, the Three Little Pigs, the Big Bad Wolf (perpetually in drag and possibly a victim of Stockholm Syndrome, only in reverse), and others. Princess Fiona (Diaz) mobilizes her own galpals (Snow White, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty) to help stave off Charming's army, which is made up of villains from various tales, such as Captain Hook (Ian McShane), the Wicked Witch, Cyclops, and Rumplestiltskin. It sounds like an excuse to shoehorn as many familiar names into the movie as possible, but some of the characters do seem to justify their existences. Oh, and know who else shows up? Eric Idle, voicing Merlin, who here is a half-crazed former teacher at Artie's school.
There's excellent use of song, too; one screaming attack by Snow White (Amy Poehler) is accompanied by the opening yowl of Robert Plant on Led Zeppelin's legendary "Immigrant Song"; this is followed by scorching vocals by Anne Wilson of Heart on "Barracuda." Sure, this stuff won't matter to the kidlets, but the adults will get a kick out of cleverly used music from their own childhood.
Here's why the movie works. None of the leads overdoes things, which is pretty tough to resist when you're doing a kids' movie, I imagine. Myers can be awfully hammy, and so can Murphy. But they're so used to their characters that they didn't go over the top, instead letting the script provide the laughs. Shrek is obstinate and foolish, and Donkey is boisterous and sassy, but they play neatly off each other without making the movie all about them. The first movie was about Shrek meeting Donkey and then Fiona, and the second was about Not Fitting In with Fiona's family. This time around, everyone's saying, "Hey, we know you know us, so let's concentrate on the story." It's a strange and ultimately refreshing approach, and it's what keeps the franchise from going stale. (They better hope so, because the fourth movie will be out in a few years.) All in all, the movie succeeds in every way it wanted to. Shrek had me tittering and guffawing at appropriate times, always a good thing. Nothing ruins a movie like laughing at inopportune times, unless the movie's so bad it's good. Shrek the Third easy reaches the level of comedy and hijinks as it had in the first two movies, not letting up with the funny. There's just no real decline in quality here, folks; this is a movie your kids will heart if they enjoyed the first two.