All the same and still funny!

Rating: 6/10 (11 May 2007)

I've just came back from the press screening, so I'll try to take the hard work to be one of the first to comment on this title.
So, 2007 can definitely be named as the year of third installments. We've just seen Spidey... New "Pirates", more Ocean's friends and even new adventures of Bourne are on the way. One should consider, what can be easier for everyone there in business - producers, filmmakers, cast, even for audience: it worked once, it should work again (if we don't make it worse). A lot of money involved, so we can't risk anything. We gonna change the plot slightly, we will use the approved storyline, use the same actors and add some new jokes, that should work the same way they did before. Sometimes it's true, sometimes it doesn't happen.
It's all because of the main thing. A really interesting comedy should be fresh and and have something completely new about it. (You know, the guys who make long-run Simpsons or South Park know a lot about such things)In other case it's gonna be the some sort of a clone and many, many laughs will be caused by recalling the first two. Third Shrek tries really hard to be funny. And we laughed like crazy a lot of times during the film (big thanks to Banderas and Murphy - they kick ass here again!). But a huge part of humor feels like being stuck in given "Shrek world", unfortunately because this world can be bigger, and it's really underused.
Characters could virtually be put into any fairy tale atmosphere, and we could meet some fresh new heroes, but all we get as a plot line is something like tooo abstract war between everyone who's good and everyone who's evil. And the main thing i'm missing for - is any plot twist, anything that surprises us, viewers.
Maybe it's all because of my high expectations, but if you wait for a completely new Shrek - it's not your movie. But if you decide whether rent and watch again first two Shreks or go to the theater and watch the new one - go ahead and give it a chance, it's still funny, even though we laughed at all this jokes many, many times before...