May 29, 2007

[Movies] Shrek the Third

Shrek the ThirdI seem to be stuck reviewing trilogies lately. Shortly after my review for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, here I am reviewing the last film of the Shrek franchise, Shrek the Third.

Sadly, this movie shares a lot of the challenges that At World's End had being the last movie in the Pirates trilogy. What is up with that? Is it that Hollywood just never knows when to quit while it's still ahead?

Shrek the Third brings us back to the land of Far Far Away, now under the proxy rule of Shrek and Princss Fiona since her father the king appears to have taken ill. Eventually he dies and Shrek is faced with a most unappealing choice (at least for him) - become King or find the only other surviving heir to the throne. Naturally, he choses the quest since the movie needs to get somewhere. At the same time the defeated Prince Charming has his own plans for the kingdom.

While the movie is certainly full of funny moments, as a whole it's just not that humorous. It suffers from the same problem that most trilogies die from - excess baggage. There were just too many characters around for this final installment and there was a vague attempt to give all of them as close to equal airtime as possible given the length of the film. Thus you end up with a lot of montages, mini-sequences featuring each character briefly and largely one-sided and hollow characterizations. It's a pity since the Princesses appeared to have so much potential.

Given the weak plot and the lack of character development, the audience is instead treated to a series of independently funny moments but they don't really feel like the part of a greater whole. The things that made the last film so successful like the interplay between the main characters, the flippant humor, the grooving soundtrack and just plain fun were sorely lacking in this film. It wasn't a bad movie, per se, but it was somewhat disappointing, especially after the amazing success of the second film.

You might want to wait for this one to hit DVD before seeing it.

3 comments:

  1. I watched that last night after work, not sure whether I was tired or whatever, it's kinda boring to me.

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  2. i felt the same way for most of the movie - a shame considering how funny the first two movies had been.

    based on IMDb - apparently a fourth movie is scheduled for production...geez

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  3. i wanna see it... but i am too busy... sigh.

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