It's not easy being green ...

Rating: 7/10 (27 October 2007)

The first movie ever produced by Dreamworks, was the great action movie "The peacemaker" with George Clooney and Nicole Kidman. The first animation pictures by Dreamworks were "The prince of Egypt" and "The road to El Dorado". The truth however is that it was the 2001-blockbuster "Shrek" that put Dreamworks on the map. It was a fabulous animation picture and one of the funniest ever made. The sequel had less jokes than the first one, but it turned out to be the ultimate feel-good movie and thus it was a fantastic movie altogether. Many wondered how far they could go with this franchise. As it turned out, there will be a fourth Shrek-movie in the near future and there's even a spin-off planned for one of its characters namely the Spanish Zorro-cat Puss in Boots. Needless to say: this franchise is doing extremely well. Even so: the third Shrek-film is by far the weakest one yet and this let-down is a bit unexpected.
"Shrek the Third" is by no means a bad movie. It's in fact the opposite. It's a good movie. The special effects of this film are absolutely stunning! They are better than those of the previous Shrek-movies. Now each and every character has its own unique clothing and they all have a very different kind of haircut too. There's more use of color and a much wider variety of facial expressions of each character. The amount of people in a single frame has also increased exponentially. The frequent use of daylight (or any other kind of light such as torches) and darkness are far more impressive and they also open up a whole new world for creating realistic shadows. New world are introduced as well and they all appear vastly superior. And we even get to see real magic by Merlin; the greatest wizard of all who can shoot light beams from his hands.
So visually, the Shrek-movies have only improved. Then what's with that slight feel of disappointment if everything seems so beautiful? Well, the problem is that they obviously were more focused on the looks than on the contents of this animation film. "Shrek the Third" is always quite amusing to watch and never any boring, but there simply aren't too many funny jokes to be had. Whilst the first film was literally crammed with hilarious moments, the third one will probably produce a few smiles on your face and an occasional laugh ... but that's about it! The overuse of long-winded monologues and conversations are the main reason as to why the third Shrek-film is no match for its previous installments. Then again: the newborn triplets of Shrek are without a doubt the cutest thing ever created in the history of animation. They look like real babies and all three of them are exceptionally adorable. Pity that we only saw so little of them in this movie. But I have a strong feeling that they will play an important part in the next one for sure.
The cast of "Shrek the Third" is only growing with each new chapter. By now: Mike Myers is playing on automatic pilot and the same could be said for Cameron Diaz and Eddy Murphy. They are all still quite funny but they add nothing new really. Antonio Banderas should also be categorized as such, but somehow I found his character a lot more amusing than the ones above. The same goes for Rupert Everett who stars again as Prince Charming. This character is also a joy to watch. A lot less funny but still okay are two new characters. The wizard Merlin makes a short yet rather comical appearance and is wonderfully voiced by British actor Eric Idle who's probably best known as a member of Monty Python. American singer/songwriter Justin Timberlake does the voice of Artie - the soon-to-be king of Far far away. This character is neither interesting nor funny, and that's a real pity.
Many fairy tale creatures return such as Pinocchio, the three pigs and of course the Gingerbread man. New ones are added such as Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping beauty. The constant quarrel between the ladies does provide a couple of good jokes. But unfortunately: not all jokes work out well. And this is not how things used to be in the world of Shrek. Perhaps the fourth movie will find a perfect balance again between awesome computer graphics and an endless diversity of funny jokes.
In short: "Shrek the Third" is not only the third in number, but also in quality. It's a good animation movie but the cracks are clearly beginning to show. If the next movie isn't hilarious like Shrek 1 or refreshing like Shrek 2, they ought to pull the plug.