Good romp for kids - but self-regarding cineastes avoid (as we avoid them)

Rating: 6/10 (24 August 2008)

Those IMDb users who have criticised Shrek The Third rather miss the point. There are two films here: one for children and one - if you like - for everyone else. The one for children, like the first two Shrek films, is a delight. Lots of laughs, lots of fighting, a bit of this and a bit of that. It's just what children enjoy. And if 'grown-ups' (as they are quaintly described, the term, misleadingly, implying that they have reached a degree of maturity) can get into the spirit of it, they, too, will enjoy this thoroughly. If, on the other hand, you really do want to insist on stepping back and pointing out various failings in the film, there are some we can mention. The story is very, very flimsy. Who is this Artie or Arthur, who is, apparently, next in line to the throne? What relation is he to the dying king? And exactly why is he a 'loser' if only to supply the necessary plot device of coming good in the end and, deus ex machina, to save Shrek from, well, death? Making him a loser also allows the film to deliver the, by now, obligatory, sermon on how 'everyone can be a winner/everyone is important/everyone can be themselves etc. (and, unfortunately, ad nauseam). Apropos this kind of Dick and Dora sermonising, there was a neat line in The Incredibles when one little boy's mother says 'he is special' because 'everyone is special'. To which the lad replies with impeccable, though under the circumstances, graceless logic: 'If everyone is special, that means no one is.' Quite. It doesn't really pay to examine Hollywood's cod sermonising too closely. But back to Shrek The Third. A great deal is made of how the gals are just as good as the guys - this is, after all, a 21st century film and acknowledging a feminist cliché or two is equally as obligatory. So we see the sisters in action as the king's widow and Fiona's mother knocks down a granite prison wall with her forehead, while the rest of the sisters then go on to demonstrate some very nifty, not to say cool, action man - sorry, action woman - moves. Well, that's all well and good, but feminism was apparently forced to take a back seat when the king died and Shrek is declared his heir. Sorry, but isn't Fiona his daughter and shouldn't she, as his direct descendant, inherit his crown? And speaking of queens, why couldn't the king's widow take over after the king's death and rule until she died? It seems that Hollywood likes to promote feminism but not too much. It might rock the boat. Finally, perhaps I missed something, but why is Prince Charming a baddie? What turned him into a baddie? We don't seem to have been informed. It can't be because his stage performance was booed, can it? Surely not. That would simply be too facile. So why is he a baddie? Well there you have three quibbles, three quite substantial holes which rather dent this particular exercise in film-making. But ask your children: do they care? Do they heck, they just cheer on the good guys and hiss the baddies (who all, in another of those excessively mawkish Hollywood twists, come good in the end. All together now: Aaaahh.) So take heart: if your sensibility can accept these utterly gross transgressions in the laws of good film-making, and if, on the other hand, you really do enjoy stunning animation, some good jokes and of you can suspend your undoubted maturity for 90 minutes and simply want an enjoyable film, Shrek The Third will not disappoint.