Shrek the Third is fun. If you watch it in a cinema full of admirers of the green ogre, Donkey and Puss in boots, you will be entertained. Still, it has its flaws. I can understand and appreciate that the producers realized their series is too much filled with jokes that won't stand the test of time: in two decades, most of the movies that are evoked will be forgotten so the jokes will not be understood. Also there are too many movies that copied this method. So they decided to make the third outing almost totally devoid of movie in-jokes (yes, there are a few but you can watch the movie without realizing any of them really was). No Matrix or Mission:Impossible this time. And it is not a problem. The problem is they could not find out what to give instead of these movie jokes. (Yes, there are jokes and even good ones, but actually when you will laugh in the cinema will be mostly when they reprise jokes from the first movies - you will laugh because they were funny at the first time so they are still funny, but not because they are original.) And what they found out is just the opposite of the spirit of the first two episodes of the series. They give morals, they give speeches about taking the responsibility and being yourself no matter what others think, and they provide a new positive hero who is a handsome average boy. No, this is not usual for a Shrek movie, it is usual for the movies and stories Shrek made fun of previously. And what about fairy tale bad boys helping the bad guy and fairy tale good girls ("Disney princesses") helping the good? Is it how it should be in Shrek or maybe only in Happily N'Ever After? In a real Shrek concept it would be the princesses who plan an attack on the "ugly ogres" and the bad guys who help the ogres. Still, I can accept the story while it is not that revisionist take we could get used to in the Shrek movies, but all this leads to a movie, which, like the once much more ogre-ish main hero, is becoming old, family-friendly and sticking to conventions, like an average man when he gets a family.
Review of Shrek the Third
