Ah, the dreaded threequel – Shrek The Third thundered into cinemas this summer at the tail end of a bunch of other movies claiming to end off movie trilogies (Spiderman 3, Pirates 3 etc). As with its fellow box-office hopefuls, has the law of diminishing returns wreaked its havoc in the magically satirical, tongue-in-cheek land that is Shrek‘s Far Far Away? Well, there’s no denying that Shrek 3 is nowhere near as impressive as either of its predecessors – it lacks the sheer inventive wit that made the first movie such a breakout success and instant animation classic, and has considerably less spark than the second film – failing to come up with a new character quite as potent and immediately popular as Puss In Boots, for example. That being said, Shrek 3 has the advantage of coming from a family of films that has long ago ironed out a winning, charming formula that works just fine; simply by not deviating from it, and on occasion pulling out a corker of a funny scene, this movie avoids heading down that dread road known only as sequel-mandated mediocrity.
Big ugly green ogre Shrek (Scottish accent courtesy of Mike Myers) is blissfully married to his princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz), but finds himself increasingly having to fill in for the ailing frog king (John Cleese) – usually with disastrous consequences – on the latter’s royal duties. When the frog king finally croaks (wow, that was too easy… almost like the writers PLANNED THAT PUN!), Shrek decides to seek out Fiona’s cousin Arthur (Justin Timberlake) and get the pimply pipsqueak to take over the throne instead. But even as Shrek hunts for Artie with the help of his trusty, noisy sidekicks Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Puss (Antonio Banderas), the nefarious Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) tires of life as a bit-part actor and rounds up Far Far Away’s foulest villains – including a snarly Captain Hook (Ian McShane) – to take over the kingdom while Shrek is away. Can Fiona, her feisty mom Lillian (Julie Andrews) and a coterie of fairytale princesses go against storytelling convention to save the day?
So plot is very much not Shrek 3‘s strongest point – the story remains pretty trite, however much the writers try to pepper it up with Shrek’s anxieties about becoming the father of a brood of ogre babies he can’t control, or Artie’s wistful teenage angsting about not fitting in anywhere. From a bumbling, unlikely anti-hero in the first movie, it’s become clear over the course of three movies that heroism comes only in a big, green and farting version. Which also means that it’s a foregone conclusion that poor old Charming, however hard he tries, isn’t going to get away with his scheme. But, and this is the key reason the movie remains so enjoyable despite having a predictable, almost piss-poor story, the draw of the Shrek franchise has never been its plot. Each movie has had a quest of sorts for Shrek to undertake – and the fun part comes in watching the characters and situations, ranging from the outlandish to the downright hilarious and almost always utterly inventive, spill out around him as he struggles mightily to complete his quest.
I must admit that it is quite a shame that Artie, the new semi-lead character that had to carry quite a bit of the film’s emotional ballast, is weak and not particularly memorable. He’s a plot device, nothing more, nothing less. I suspect that there’s also only so much the writers can do with Shrek and Fiona – they both remain amiable presences throughout the film, and it’s undeniably sweet the lengths to which each will go to save each other’s big green asses. But that’s something we’ve known all along. Unlike in the first movie, when the quirks and foibles that made up their thorny, prickly relationship formed the basis of the film, they are almost the sideshow here, as the movie explodes merrily in every other direction, new characters teeming off the page and onto the screen with great enthusiasm.
Fortunately, there really is no shortage of great minor characters in Shrek 3, to the extent that some of the older, better-established ones get short shrift in terms of screen-time. Donkey and Puss, for instance, remain wildly funny, as anchored by the brazenly confident vocal performances of Murphy and Banderas… but one gets the sense, as they’re plunged conveniently into an extended body-swap joke, that the writers were looking for cheap, easy jokes rather than the more thoughtful, sly situational comedy they’ve concocted before. But who really wants to quibble when you get a host of new secondary characters as loopy and amusing as this batch? The fairytale princesses, all voiced by SNL alumni and each one a riff on a popular Disney character, are a hoot – Snow White (Amy Poehler) is as aggressive a bitch-on-wheels as a dainty princess can be; Sleeping Beauty (Cheri Oteri) a narcoleptic who falls asleep at random points throughout the film; and Cinderella (Amy Sedaris) is more than a little obsessive-compulsive in her need to clean up after. And because the Shrek producers felt that they hadn’t plundered Disney’s archives quite enough, we also get the chance to meet revered wizard Merlin (Eric Idle) – except that he’s gone rather barmy, decked out as he is in his too-short nightshirt and living in a tricked-out, New-Agey house that plays inspirational music on cue when Shrek and Artie need to have a “moment”. Even Hook gets a look-in as a typically rubbish panto-type villain, even breaking out a piano at one point to bang out the soundtrack for a fight scene… until Shrek smashes said piano to bits. At least in this respect, Shrek 3 retains the cheeky, irreverent tone that made its predecessors so much fun to watch.
I couldn’t wax lyrical about the characters without pointing out that some old favourites get great moments too. Returning favourite Pinocchio (Cody Cameron) gets a monologue in question form, as he tries to muddle Charming up completely while avoiding telling a lie about Shrek’s whereabouts. The three pigs with inexplicable German accents (also voiced by Cameron) are cute too, forming a mini-Greek chorus as Charming interrogates the fairytale creatures. Best of all, however, is the return of the Gingerbread Man (Conrad Vernon) in what is surely one of the funniest scenes all year – when threatened with bodily harm by Charming, the ever endearingly squeaky Gingerbread Man is afforded a unique moment when his life literally flashes past his eyes, and you’re not likely to see anything more inventive, funny and just plain wacky for a long, long while.
Throw all these characters in the mix, with some really classic, typically snarky lines of dialogue (“Help! I’m being kidnapped by a monster who’s trying to relate to me!”, and an exchange I can’t quite recall now between Donkey and Puss about why Donkey wears no underwear) and you’ve got a movie that trundles along at a happy, thoroughly enjoyable clip. Is it as good or as creative and fresh as its predecessors? No. That’s pretty obvious. But if a movie like this can shoehorn a moral so unsubtly into its plotline (‘You and you alone make you the person you want to be – who cares what other people say about you!’) and emerge mostly unscathed at the other end, you gotta give it some props. Shrek 3 doesn’t grab you in the heart the way some of the best animated films (like Shrek or The Incredibles) can, preferring instead to coast along on its tried-and-tested formula of pop-culture references and witty in-jokes. A sellout? When are Hollywood movies anything but? Perhaps the one other thing I can say in favour of Shrek 3 is that, although this movie boasts some marvellous animation (watch Charming toss his sparkling golden hair in the wind!), this is emphatically not one of those animated movies when you find yourself occasionally, or even far too often, distracted from the story by the gloriousness of the animation (see: Ice Age 2). That doesn’t make it a classic, by any means – but it surely makes it entertaining. And with doubts cast over both Spiderman 3 and Pirates 3 as to whether they were worth the film they’re printed on, why look any further than the reliably formulaic, reliably funny Shrek 3 for a summer blockbuster that really will please all the family?
shawneofthedead 