Shrek the Third
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 "Somebody once told me this film was gonna bore me, it ain't the sharpest film in the franchise..."
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Shrek the Third (also simply known as Shrek 3) is a 2007 American computer-animated fantasy comedy film directed by Chris Miller and co-directed by Raman Hui. It is the third installment in the Shrek film franchise and serves as a sequel to Shrek 2. The premiered at the Mann Village Theatre, Westwood in Los Angeles on May 6, 2007, and was released in the United States on May 18, 2007.
Plot
When King Harold suddenly croaks, Shrek learns he will have to rule the land of Far, Far Away, unless he can find a suitable heir to the throne. The most promising candidate is Princess Fiona's cousin Artie, a teenage slacker in a medieval high school. Shrek and his trusted companions, Donkey and Puss in Boots, set out to bring Artie back but find their mission is a bigger challenge than they expected.
Qualities That Aren’t The Sharpest Tool in The Shed
- This film is inferior to the first two Shrek films, and it lacks any charm or charisma of the first two in terms of storytelling, characters, music, and humor, as almost every joke in the film is incredibly tasteless and unfunny compared to the first two, particularly when Shrek accidentally puts his sword into a guy's shoulder while practicing knighting.
- On the topic of lacking the charm of the previous two films, Shrek the Third lacks many of the characteristic things from the previous two films and its follow-up.
- Very poor continuation: It's not a good continuation of the previous film, along with Cars 2 and Minions(which came out 8 years later and sports similar issues). And for good reason because, like Schaffrillas Productions pointed out in their video for the film, it does almost everything a sequel shouldn't to progress the narrative and improve on its predecessor, thus making Shrek the Third feel more-or-less like a side film or even a spin-off film than a proper Feather-Length movie that serves as a sequel to the Main Stream Shrek series:
- Continue the story, but in a bad, lazy, and sloppy way: The first movie ended with a "happily ever after" ending; however, here they raise an interesting question: what happens after that? We knew Fiona was a princess trapped in a tower, but we didn't know why she was there, what her kingdom was, what lineage she came from, etc. In Shrek 2 we get to know her elegant kingdom, her parents, the stories of her curse, and even the people behind her in the first place (the fairy godmother) and we see how Shrek was not prepared to deal with his wife's true origins. In Shrek the Third, the idea of Shrek having to become king and father at the same time is a really good one (remember the first movie was about him marrying Fiona and the second movie was about him meeting his relatives, so it was obvious that the third movie would be about Shrek becoming a father). However, the way Shrek the Third executes these ideas is very poorly done.
- Doesn't Expand the Universe: In Shrek 2 we explore the world of fairy tales further, seeing places like the "The Poison Apple" bar, where all the fairy tale villains gather, and especially the realm of Far Far Away which later became the main setting for the franchise. In addition, Shrek 2 further expanded the mythology, particularly in how society views ogres and Fiona's past, answering questions from the first movie, such as who Fiona's parents were and what kingdom she came from. Shrek the Third however introduces us to Worcestershire High School and the lost home of Merlin the Wizard, which are never seen or mentioned again in Shrek Forever After, Puss in Boots, or even the shorts, TV specials, and Puss in Boots' tv series.
- Doesn't leave an undeniable impact on the franchise: As noted above, Shrek 2 introduced Far Far Away becomes the main setting from this point on, all events in the franchise come as consequences of what happened in Shrek 2, and characters like Puss in Boots, King Harold, and Queen Lillian have also become important members of the franchise. However, the same cannot be said of Shrek the Third. Just like Halloween III: Season of the Witch, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Cars 2 and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, the only event or contribution that can be considered important of the film for the franchise is the birth of Shrek’s children, since most of the events that occur in the film can be omitted without any problem. Also, Shrek Forever After has few references to Shrek the Third and barely acknowledges the events of Shrek the Third, though this may have been done because Shrek the Third had a mixed reception by the critics and the public. In Shrek Forever After and the shorts, Arthur (who was going to appear in Shrek Forever After, but was deleted), Merlin, and Rapunzel seem to have never existed and they are never mentioned. The same can be said about the princesses, who only appear in the credits of Shrek Forever After, and are never mentioned in the shorts and TV specials. In fact, Shrek the Third can be overlooked, and literally, nothing is lost, as most of the events of Shrek the Third are completely ignored in Shrek Forever After as in Shrek's Christmas or Halloween shorts, or suffer almost 80% of retcon. A great example of retcon is the Fact that Rumpelstiltskin is completely different from Rumpelstiltskin from Shrek the Third, but there are other examples of retcon, like:
- Charming’s death is ignored in Shrek Forever After, as he appears alive in Thriller Night.
- The academy or school in Worcestershire (The place where Arthur studied) from Shrek the Third, it seems they never existed, not even mentioned by Fiona, Lilian, Rumpelstiltskin (From Shrek Forever After), the ogre community (From Shrek Forever After), or the townspeople of San Ricardo (From Puss in Boots).
- The villains from the fairy tales are supposed to have attacked the kingdom, as in the case of Arthur, they don't seem to have dealt any blow to the kingdom, in fact, the only thing that is mentioned of them in Shrek Forever After is in a dialogue from the fourth film where it is said that, with the marriage of Shrek and Fiona, they became good and lived in peace, the same can be said in the shorts.
- Does not add new and exciting villains: Charming from the previous movie returns as the main villain and that's it.
- Retains the elements that made the previous movie great (humor, music, emotion, action, etc.), but in a bad and lazy way.
- Introduces unattractive new themes: Shrek's arc in the first film was that he learned to open his heart to others, people were afraid of him for being an ogre and he rejected others believing that he rather be alone than to be judged, so he meets Donkey who sees him as a good friend and Fiona who he falls in love with after she realizes that just because he's an ogre doesn't mean he's bad. Shrek realizes that just because everyone thinks he's bad doesn't mean everyone will. In the second film, Shrek learned something even more important: to love yourself. He was again dealing with rejection and discrimination just for being an ogre and heard those ogres don't have happy endings. He drinks the potion wanting Fiona to like it, but then she makes him realize that she has fallen in love with him the way she knew him, which makes him stop feeling bad about it. He no longer wanted to change himself to make others like him. In Shrek the Third, we see Shrek dealing with the responsibilities (one of being the king's substitute and the other of being a father), which are good ideas, but poorly executed. Aside from terrible ideas like villain Charming and Arthur's pointless bout of annoyance that was supposed to serve after helping Shrek address his fear of parenthood, it's pretty botched, he's a human teenager and not a baby ogre.
- Lowers the stakes: One of the plot points of the movie is Shrek scared of being a father, he gets arrested and sees a Cyclops with a daughter which is a crude metaphor because Shrek is a monster who is going to have kids and that's it. A ridiculous climax ensues in which the villains are about to attack, but Arthur uses the power of friendship and everyone is okay except Charming, who is ultimately defeated and smashed by a tower by the Dragon. Being a ridiculous climax and a bad third act.
- This film was a whim of Dreamworks since the real reason for the existence of this third installment within the Shrek franchise was that DreamWorks Studios wanted to face or be superior to other animation studios such as Disney (which was going through the second dark age ), Pixar, Blue Sky, etc; therefore, it was not only a continuation of Shrek but also an opportunity for the studio to overload or oversell any product that belonged to or had the Shrek name on it. This in itself is more evident when in different interviews that were carried out, the producers of the film like DreamWorks affirmed that this film would be the one that would expand the Shrek franchise. On top of that, this movie was a way that DreamWorks wanted to reward itself after the financial disappointment of Flushed Away and the constant re-recording or poor reception on Bee Movie test streams.
- Executive Meddling: Originally and almost officially, the film was going to have the work of Andrew Adamson, however, because he was busy directing the sequel to The Chronicles of Narnia, by decision of the studio they removed him from the project Dreamworks was the main responsible. Due to the rewriting of the script, in addition to the fact that several original writers of the saga, left the project by decision of the studio, at the same time it was the fault of the producers of Dreamworks, that the film suffered a setback as continuous progress, since during production, not having a script to work with, they constantly changed the story that Andrew Adamson wrote before leaving the project, they ordered the creation of different scripts of which only 3 approved, several of the scenes they had in mind to create had to be eliminated and others that did not even reach the final product (although they were to be included), in addition to the fact that it was also the studio's decision to include too many voice actors for this film.
- On top of that, the studio made the difficult decision to deal with the other animation studios, constantly promoting a gigantic marketing campaign, far surpassing the one presented by Pixar's Ratatouille movie.
- Aside from the above, the original release date was November 2006; however, it ended ahead of May 18, 2007, to compete with the premiere of Sony's Spider-Man 3 (which had already been released for a week) and Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" (which was to be released a week later), where their marketing took care of everything possible that the public did not pay attention to the aforementioned films.
- Although it should be noted that premiering in front of those two films that were of high level affected the film's box office performance, since Shrek: The Third took a long time to reach or exceed 750 million, not to mention the fact that different box office screenings said that it was going to raise between 870 or 930 million. In turn for a long period, it was not known in a definite way if its box office was 813 or 796 million dollars.
- Apart from the aforementioned, it was also the study's decision that in all the posters, merchandise, or toys of the film, there are absolutely or nothing more than the new characters of the film such as Arthur, Merlin, the creatures of fairy tales, the princesses. and the fairytale villains (not to mention the fact that all of these characters except Arthur are not important to the plot of the film), to sell marketing.
- Production Hell: Although it may not seem like it, this film went through problems during its production, since Andrew Adamson, who was the director and main screenwriter of the second Shrek, had to abandon both the direction and the development of the script of this third film (since he was the director of the "The Chronicles of Narnia" films) so due to scheduling problems he had not worked on the main script of the film, despite presenting some drafts. The same thing happened with the scriptwriters of previous Shrek films such as J David Stem, Joe Stillman, David N. Weiss, Kelly Asbury, Cody Cameron, and Conrad Vernon, who like Andrew did not work on the production of the film's script, apart from the aforementioned this film although it had Chris Miller's job, Dreamworks had to improvise with different writers to complete the story.
- Speaking of the subject of the scripts, this third film itself had the participation of people outside the concept presented by Shrek, but who were closer to the concept presented by the Madagascar films, in fact at the time of creating the story the scriptwriters created up to three drafts that ultimately failed executives like DreamWorks Producers, who ultimately had to combine each of the drafts to make the main script.
- The film completely misses a good premise (Shrek trying to be king). Instead, he decides to implant or jump into different contexts throughout the film, which contributes little or almost nothing to the plot.
- The film can be way too dark and edgy for a children's film because there is a surprisingly large count of casualties... in a children's film. Particular examples include a scene where Shrek accidentally causes a ship to sink as dozens of people are killed in the process, as well as the deaths of King Harold and Prince Charming, respectively, and a scene where after the heroines are ambushed by the villains, they also threaten to kill Fiona, who keep in mind is still pregnant at that time, so therefor there is a form of child abuse.
- It doesn't help that Shrek's nightmare sequence is also too frightening for a children's movie, especially the part where the ogre baby-faced Donkey says "Dada!" seconds before Shrek wakes up.
- While it is true that some of the previous Shrek films had their far-share of dark and edgy moments, they were done very well and usually never go THAT far with their tone.
- The film is just like Ice Age: Continental Drift and Ice Age: Collision Course, despite presenting a premise that would with the death of King Harold, the search for a new king, and a coup to the kingdom is also quite childish even by DreamWorks standards this is the first of the franchise to have the most childish execution ever since the actions of the characters as the background they have is very innocent as the guards do not arrest Shrek since Arthur says he is an actor, with the villains singing in the middle of a game, the villain practices and dances to act out a play, the princesses make ambiguous comments when stopped, have King Harold fake his death or make strange sounds or most obviously of all, the villains both reform and leave the room wrong with Arthur's speech.
- Another major problem with this film is that as in the case of Ice Age: Collision Course, it does not know how to correctly distribute the theme or main story of the film, in addition to this being the first film in the Shrek franchise that has an excessive number of subplots precisely fifteen (being more than four or five that were adequately developed in first, two Shrek films, Forever After and Puss in Boots), this being a serious problem since the film does not define which plot is the main one of the film, for mention that only three subplots stand out, while all the others have terrible development or execution that makes them feel rushed and out of context, as well as not being adequately resolved.
- Shrek's character arc of becoming a father with babies is botched in terms of execution; in Shrek 2 he was afraid of losing Fiona, reinforced by well-written dialogue and somber scenes of contemplation. The way this film treats this involves visualizing his fears of raising babies in the form of a nightmare, which is rather uncompelling in terms of execution.
- This plot of Shrek about to become a father also feels very unnecessary and forced, there are only a few scenes that focus on this and the ogre babies are only there so that the movie can have a happy ending but other than that, this contributes nothing to the film.
- Even though the first two acts have their decent moments, however, the third act falls to a predictable, weak, and unfunny finale.
- On the topic of predictability, if one looks closely at some of the promotional posters, trailers, and even the DVD cover for the film, the ogre babies are seen, which just spoils the ending.
- King Harold's death is very tasteless, as he does not one, but two fake-out deaths before he dies for real this time; his death is also supposed to be heartbreaking and serious, but it is instead filled with pointless and unfunny gags, like when he eats a fly after his second fake-out death and it's not a good idea to make this scene like this, it RUINS everything in the emotional scene!
- Speaking of the death of King Harold, it at some point feels forced, because the character although he had a leading role in Shrek 2, the truth is that he was used in a relatively short time within the franchise, so his death does not make it emotional or endearing as was the case with the deaths in the Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon trilogies respectively.
- Another problem with the death of King Harold is that it is not memorable, due to its animation, since it's animation or the movements that the character makes are too flat (this being visible when he speaks), it reaches some grotesque point (mainly when he fakes his death) and the panoramic view that is made only focuses on his face, completely ruining the moment.
- The attitude of the characters who witnessed his death (mainly Puss, Shrek, and Fiona) do not show an attitude of humanity or melancholy, but of almost disinterest and apathy.
- A very notorious problem is that John Cleese's voice as King Harold sounds too overwhelming, muffled, and feigned causing his voice to cause laughter or involuntary comedy, this is more evident when in the international dubbing of the films, the voice actors of King Harold use tones to express sadness.
- Apart from the above, his death does not cause emotional damage or development to the main character (Shrek) or the deuteragonists (Donkey, Puss, Fiona, Lilian, or Arthur), not to mention that it is easily or completely forgotten during the second and third act.
- This is proved in Shrek Forever After, where his death is ignored, being in the credits where it is confirmed that he died, however, if the final credits are omitted the fate of the character remains ambiguous, the same can be said of the flashbacks of Shrek the Third in the end credits, with the scene of King Harold in his bed eating a fly (after faking his death), which also becomes ambiguous, this also applies in the shorts.
- The film has far too many protagonists, including new characters such as the princesses, Arthur Pendragon, and Merlin the Wizard, and as a result, the story becomes confusing and muddled.
- In fact, there are only 3 relevant characters in the story: Shrek, Arthur, and the main antagonist of this film, Prince Charming since the others (even Fiona who only tells Shrek that she is pregnant and allies with the princesses against Charming) don't or barely contribute anything to the story
- On the subject of Prince Charming, he is supposed to be the main antagonist of the film and is a reasonable choice in terms of his motivations; however, he's treated as a Butt-Monkey, which makes the film's audience feel a bit of sympathy for him when they aren't supposed to; he is also bland as the main villain of the film and is not as threatening or entertaining as Lord Farquaad (Shrek), Fairy Godmother (Shrek 2) or Rumpelstiltskin (Shrek Forever After), instead, he literally behaves like a spoiled brat and you can't take him seriously.
- The most pathetic thing about Charming is that his evil plan basically consists of setting up a musical play in which he intends to kill Shrek in front of the kingdom, and when this happens at the end of the movie neither Shrek, the kingdom, or even the viewer take him seriously due to his behavior (and awful singing) to the point where Charming's play becomes a Shrek's stand-up in which he constantly ridicules him.
- In addition to that, it is worth mentioning that keeping Charming as a villain considering that he was also an antagonist in the second film, is a great failure on the part of the film's writers since technically they never understood the true role or the creation of the characters in the saga, since Charming was created as a cliché character of the animation "The perfect subject that everyone loves and wants to be like him" if taking into account only the role he had in the second film makes it clear that Charming was not created specifically to be a villain, but as the stereotype of the fragile prince (Disney's most worn), therefore making him assume the role of antagonist is not at all reliable if we observed that in the first draft he was going to make a villain, it was a complex task to turn an empty character into a sadistic and calculating villain.
- The attitude, background like the execution that Prince Charming has in the film, makes him not only one of the worst villains of the Shrek franchise but of Dreamworks in general, since his actions never have an impact on the development of the characters of the movie, taking into account that the Dreamworks villains (mainly Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon) were key pieces in the development of the story and the characters.
- It is assumed in Shrek the Third that Prince Charming was left poor after the events of the Shrek 2. In Shrek the Third, he was also defeated by Shrek and crushed by a tower, however in Shrek Forever After and the shorts, this is completely omitted.
- In fact, in the shorts it makes it clear that he's still alive, he's got money, and now he's good (being the short Shrek - M.J. Thriller HD the one that confirms all this [1]), even in the video game that came out based on Shrek the Third, the character is alive.
- The casting choices that were made in the film are questionable, although the main cast returns for their respective character, the new characters or supporting characters are played by actors who had more experience in the field of film acting than in dubbing, the most questionable being that of Justin Timberlake for Arthur since he was chosen not for his experience in the dubbing medium but for his fame in the musical medium, the same can be said of the actor's Eric Idle, Seth Rogen, Maya Rudolph, Amy Sedaris, Amy Poehler, John Krasinski, Ian McShane, and Susanne Blakeslee, who were chosen simply for their fame or for gaining public attention.
- However, as in the case of its premiere date, this decision was at some point detrimental since the performance of the new members of the voice cast was disappointing, this being more visible in Justin Timberlake, Eric Idle, Ian McShane, and, Susanne Blakeslee, whose performance is out of place or out of tune with the movie atmosphere.
- The soundtrack of the film is far from being flashy or innovative in the scenes where the characters appear with the environment, the background music is completely banal, firstly there are scenes where there is no background music, and at other times the music that accompanies the characters it does not connect or does not match the atmosphere of the scene there are serious or sad moments that have happy music in the background.
- While the musical score is decent, the soundtrack is used incorrectly in some scenes:
- One scene attempts to use Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song", but it gets the timing of the scream completely wrong and then proceeds to play a different song shortly after.
- Some of the song choices themselves do not fit the tone in some scenes, with the biggest offender being the Damien Rice song "9 Crimes", since the scene it plays in is supposed to be sad and dour, but it becomes confusing when a song about infidelity is being played; there is also "Live and Let Die" from the 1973 James Bond film of the same name, which plays during King Harold's funeral.
- The subplot of Puss and Donkey's bodies being switched in the style of Freaky Friday is rather pointless and serves no reason to exist other than padding out the film's length and giving the duo something to do in this film.
- In fact, this is completely omitted and never mentioned in Shrek Forever After and the shorts.
- Another big problem with the film is that the dialogue is terrible; far from being dialogues between animated characters with human feelings, they feel more like they improvised dialogue between two indifferent characters, which is terrible if you assume that in the last two films, the characters had witty dialogues or scripts that connected with the franchise, in this film however, far from being transversal, it lacks the wit and causes embarrassment the viewer.
- As previously mentioned, the majority of the attempts at humor are tasteless and are sometimes very offensive, especially Shrek's infamous "Well, someone better be dying!" line right before the scene immediately cuts to King Harold on his deathbed.
- The background that is given to the film is disastrous since the film has a hasty execution, at the same time slow, that all it does is oversaturate the film to the extreme, causing that the premise that is presented does not cause an impact. emotional or personal with the viewer, something that was handled perfectly well in Shrek, Shrek 2, Shrek Forever After, or Puss in Boots, in Shrek the Third combines humor in moments that are supposed to be serious, so when one of the characters is about to take damage, you no longer care that it is full of humor.
- The animation, although an improvement over the animation of the first two Shrek films, has an unpleasant color palette, with the background colors being just brown, gray, and dark yellow, unlike the previous films that were more colorful.
- Speaking of the animation of the film, there are very notorious moments (mainly in the harbor, the house of Merlin, and the kingdom of Far Far Away) where the exterior shots of the landscape like the clouds and the wind are too static.
- At the same time, some renderings are poorly polished, textures look fake (or are game-like), and various background characters lack expressions.
- Poor direction by Chris Miller and Raman Hui whose takes are always static in this film.
- It's more glaring knowing that Chris Miller directed Puss in Boots and Chris' direction in Puss in Boots is really good.
- Unlike the first two Shrek films, and Forever After that most of the shots towards the characters were American shots, medium-long shots, and wide shots in all the scenes in which they appeared (which gave a good reflection of the environment and the exterior), practically all the shots that are made of the characters in Shrek the Third are limited only to the very close-up, close-up or medium close-up, and in a few exceptions to the general medium shot, which in addition to limiting too much. The atmosphere shown in the film shows that the direction, production, and design of the animation in Shrek the Third was extremely lazy.
- The design of the characters, although at first, is original, the truth is that they are extremely simple, since a good part of the design of the characters is recycled from the first film, or the second film, in addition to that all the characters have the same face, body, and facial features, for example:
- Arthur is practically identical to Prince Charming only with a more orange skin tone.
- Merlin has the same design as the wizards from the first movie only with a longer beard and no hair.
- The princesses have the same face as the physical features of the human version of Fiona, only with changes in her hair and height.
- Villains as a villain in fairy tales share practically the same physical features (In fact, all pirates are fat and witches have the same face), with the only difference being the costume they wear.
- The students and the teachers at the academy in Worcestershire have the same face and the same physical features of the princesses (who are copies of Fiona) and the pirates.
- Poor editing that makes Far Far Away look more like an avenue than the realm of the second movie
- The climax is sadly stupid and EXTREMELY anticlimactic since literally, Charming wants to be crowned king in a musical play where he tells his hardships in a presumptuous or annoying way, in front of a subjugated people, while Shrek is more than scared "Because they are going to kill". He takes it as if it were a joke, although we take into account that despite his song and attitude, Charming is capable of killing him, and then all Shrek's friends appear that instead of attacking the villains and rescuing Shrek, what they only do is pose and nothing else, then after being ambushed by the villains of Fairy Tales, when all seems lost and Prince Charming has the upper-hand, instead of Shrek and his friends thinking up a strategy, Arthur arrives "In an inexplicable way" to tell the villains in a very indirect way "Stop being bad, you have not had other goals in your life", something very pathetic since the villains out-of-nowhere just gives up just by hearing those words, Charming then attempts to attack Arthur, only for Shrek to jump in and rescue Arthur, and after it looks like Shrek has been impaled by Charming with his sword, its reviled that he barley missed Shrek by his under arms and then we see the defeat of Charming being crushed by a tower from the Dragon, this is perhaps one of the weakest, lamest and most anticlimactic climax to have ever happen in a Shrek film series, let alone the climaxes in ALL of Dreamworks animation.
- Regardless of taking into account what happened in Shrek the Third, this film has one of the most absurd and useless outcomes in the history of Dreamworks, since everything is solved in a very convenient way, the characters do not suffer any damage and everyone lives happily forever, which far from looking like a Dreamworks ending looks like a Disney sequel ending (Bearing almost resemblance to The Hunchback of Notre Dame II, Mulan II and Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World), and given its out-of-nowhere moments and pacing, it's overall climax feels very rushed, tho given the production that Shrek the Third went though, that's to be expecting.
- It also feels way too similar to the first Shrek film's climax, in which a character is being interrogated by the main villain in an opera-like building, but with Shrek and Charming in place instead of Fiona(Orger) and Lord Farquaad.
- Not only that, but the climax of this film also adds some serious miss potential, the idea of Prince Charming rounding up some villains from Fairy Tale to add him was on paper a great idea, and given the fact that Charming pretty much has an army, the climax could have been about Shrek's friends rescuing the latter from Charming's Play, and while Shrek deals with Prince Charming, Shrek's friends takes on the Villains of Fairy Tale, which the climax could have easily been about.
- Lame Ending: Arthur has decided to crown himself king while people without even knowing him praise him as a new king and then we see a scene that ends with Shrek with Fiona taking care of her children.
- False advertising: In the different posters that came out of the film, Shrek can be seen wearing a king's suit with a king's crown. However, Shrek only wears this suit for 3 minutes, and at no time in the film is he seen with a Crown. That also implied that Shrek was going to become the new king when in the film after finding out that he's supposed to be the new king, he rejects this and goes looking for Arthur so that he can be it.
- As stated earlier in the #2 segment, Shrek the Third barely has any impact on the Shrek series, as the plots of this film have been completely ignored and none of the characters from this film return in later sequels, the only thing that this film contributions to the Shrek series is Shrek and Fiona having kids and nothing more, but even so, Shrek the Third can still be skipped. You can watch the first two Shrek films, skipping Shrek the Third, and anything too important will not be missed.
All Star Qualities
- The animation is an improvement from the previous two films.
- A couple of funny scenes, such as Puss in Donkey's body doing his cute eyes thing only for the guards to find him weird, and another scene where Pinocchio tries to avoid Charming's interrogation by trying not to say "yes" or "no", as well as one scene where a guy assumes Shrek's appearance to be a costume.
- The baby ogres are cute.
- Amazing voice acting, thanks to the cast reprising their roles.
- The dubbing of the films despite their errors in some translations is good.
- The phrase Donkey from school has been a precursor to a series of theories about the Shrek franchise.
- In one scene, the school band at Worcestershire Academy plays "All-Star" by Smash Mouth from the first movie, which is a nice touch.
- It features a raw reflection of the debilitating concerns of entering fatherhood, despite the plot of Shrek becoming a father with babies being poorly written and executed in this movie.
- Seth Rogen does make a decent, almost unrecognizable cameo.
- As mentioned above, some of the song choices are decent, but nowhere near as good as in the previous films.
- Royal Pain fits very well with the scene where it shows Shrek’s routine of trying to be a king but failing.
- The fight between the Princesses and the Knights is action-packed.
- Though weak as an antagonist, Prince Charming's motivations to take over Far, Far Away and avenge his deceased mother are very justified and reasonable.
- The scene when Shrek and Artie talk about their respective fathers is nice and heart-warming.
- The characters are still likable, and this is also one of the very few incidences where a sequel does not butcher and/or derail any of the characters(minus Shrek's very infamous line as stated in the Bad Quality Segment #20).
- It reunited John Cleese and Eric Idle, who were known for being on Monty Python.
- Artie's speech at the end is a very nice message.
- As it was said before, this movie has very good ideas that had a big potential, although they were poorly executed.
- Charming wanted an act of revenge against Shrek and his friends makes sense, considering the events of Shrek 2.
- The idea of taking all the known fairy-tale bad guys into a gang to take over a kingdom is pretty original.
- Shrek becoming a father could have been better explored if they focused more on his fears, like Shrek 2.
- Speaking of this subplot, it could have been better if Arthur was a child and not a teenager, so the relationship between Shrek and Arthur could have made more sense
- Charming rounding up the villains from Fairy Tale.
- The idea of princesses being badass and fighters and helping Fiona is great.
- It has more humor than Shrek Forever After and Puss in Boots, although the humor in Shrek the Third is very bad, especially compared with the humor of Shrek and Shrek 2.
- Doris, from Shrek 2, has more time in this movie and is one of the main characters.
- As it was said before, 80% of the events of Shrek the Third are completely ignored or suffer retcon in Shrek Forever After, shorts, and TV specials.
- The voice acting is really good, thanks to Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Rupert Everett, John Cleese, Julie Andrews, and Antonio Banderas and all the voice actors from the first two movies that are here.
- In one scene, we can see the hands and the laugh of Lord Farquaad, the villain from the first film.
Reception
Critical response
Unlike the previous two Shrek films, Shrek the Third was not as well-received, as it was met with mixed reviews from critics and the audience, making it the weakest Shrek film. The film currently holds a 42% rating based on 211 reviews with the consensus reads, "Shrek the Third has pop culture potshots galore but at the expense of the heart, charm, and wit that made the first two Shreks classics". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 58 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, a step down from the first two films' "A".
Box office
Shrek the Third grossed $ 813 on a budget of $ 160 million, becoming the fourth highest-grossing film of 2007, and was the box office success, however, DreamWorks deemed it a bad investment as they expected Shrek III raised a minimum of $ 910 or $ 930 million, at the same time that its net profit was greatly reduced by the gigantic marketing campaign, as well as the payment to the actors (in fact, this is the first and only film of DreamWorks in having more than 50 voice actors), which reportedly generated a net profit of $ 450 or $ 500 million ($ 450 million less than Shrek 2, $ 200 million less than Shrek: Forever After or Shrek, and $ 150 million less than Puss in Boots).
Controversy
At the beginning of the movie, in Prince Charming's dinner theater, coconuts are revealed to be the source of the horse's hoof beats. the same joke was used in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which also starred John Cleese and Eric Idle. Idle left the premiere accusing the film producers of the unauthorized use of this gag, while the producers claimed that they were honoring Cleese and Idle by using the scene. Also, the Conservative Illinois blog criticized the use of Doris the ugly stepsister, saying that they were using the character to "desensitize" children and parents to transgenderism.
Trivia
- This is the only film where Shrek doesn't roar.
- Despite being directed by Chris Miller, his character the Magic Mirror does not appear in the film making this the only Shrek movie to do so.
- There had been some rumors that Shrek the Third was originally meant to be the final installment of the Shrek series.
- The scene where Prince Charming and the Fairy Tale villains invade Far Far Away is somewhat similar to real-life invasions such as the bombing of Pearl Harbor as well as Germany invading Poland, along with the German Blitzkrieg. The film version of Pearl Harbour was released the same year as the first Shrek film.
- Mike Myers (Shrek) and Justin Timberlake (Artie) were both in The Love Guru, also distributed by Paramount Pictures.
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