The first two Shreks breathed so naturally on so many levels, and this exists only on one. It will take a lot of tortured exposition to shoehorn Third into anything like that: I’ve been trying to find a way to make Charming’s forays into dinner theater work on that level - something about the self-referential storyness of everything going on here - trying to find a way to interpret how pop music crossing over from the soundtrack to intrude into the narrative space becomes a kind of joke on how movies manipulate us.
The first two Shreks weren’t just stories about an ogre who wants to be left alone, though they played perfectly lovely on that level: they were also thrillingly insightful theses on modern attitudes toward and modern reactions to fairy tales, to mythology, to our love-hate relationship with our consumer culture in which prepackaged entertainment is a product serving vastly different purposes than organically sprung up legend used to serve. The big quibble is this: Third isn’t anything more than what it is on the surface. Though I don’t see why she couldn’t be fighting for her own throne…īut that’s minor quibbling.
Shrek the third free#
I guess Far Far Away is more hidebound by sexist tradition than we’d realized, and anyway, keeping Fiona off the throne keeps her free to try to fend off a palace coup - with the help of some other fairy-tale gals - by Charming while Shrek is off seeking Artie. Why Fiona (the voice of Cameron Diaz: The Holiday, In Her Shoes) can’t take the throne is a huge mystery: she’s the actual daughter of the king, not a relation by marriage.
It clips along, with its story about Shrek inheriting the throne of Far Far Away and so desperately not wanting it that he goes in search of the next-in-line, Arthur (the voice of Justin Timberlake: Black Snake Moan, Alpha Dog), who’s off in Ye Olde Medieval High School a ship’s journey away. Mike Myers’ ( The Cat in the Hat, View from the Top) Shrek is still a lovable slob, Rupert Everett’s ( The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Stage Beauty) Prince Charming is still hissably evil…īlah blah blah. Eddie Murphy’s ( The Haunted Mansion, Daddy Day Care) Donkey is still charming, Antonio Banderas’s ( Take the Lead, Once Upon a Time in Mexico) Puss in Boots is still funny… even if both of them have been reduced to more standard sidekick roles for the big green guy this time out.
Shrek the third skin#
The animation is even more gorgeous than it was in the last two films: finally, skin tones look like skin, and not like plastic. I passed a pleasant 84 minutes at the movies. What else ya got? More of the same? Yawn. We’ve been around the park twice, bought the T-shirt and the Shrek ears, sent a postcard home. We’re primed, now, for the tweaking of fairy tales and the postironic spin on myths and mythmaking.
But Shrek the Second did what very few films can actually manage to do: it found wild new realms of humor by being riotously original, by not retreading ground that’s already been well explored and mapped.īut guess what? Yup: just as Sam Raimi’s genius with his first two Spidey outings ruined us for Spider-Man 3, Shrek and Shrek 2 ruined us for Shrek the Third. I snort in recognition of a bit of mockery or clever turn of phrase. And laugh? Holy crap, Shrek 2 had me screaming with laughter, which simply isn’t the typical me.
Shrek 2 stunned me in that it was even smarter and slyer and more seditious than the first. But I wanted a lot more than “fine.” I expected much, much more than “fine.” Shrek’s deconstruction of fairy tales managed to be both deliciously subversive and heartwarmingly traditional. I’m tellin’ ya, if Pirates the Third is this ho-hum, I’m gonna curl up in bed and hibernate till September. It’s not even summer yet, but already it’s the summer of the three-quel, and already we’re oh-no for two.