Shrek the Third movie review & film summary (2007)
Indeed, Shrek is the only character in the movie who makes a big deal about his ogrehood. The king and queen (voices of John Cleese and Julie Andrews) have long since embraced their son-in-law, and on his deathbed, the frog king reveals that Shrek is an heir to the throne — one of two, including the feckless Artie (voice of pop star Justin Timberlake). Shrek demurs, preferring life back in the swamp in what Fiona describes as his "vermin-filled shack."
Why would Fiona, raised as a princess, accept life in such a dreary mire of despond? Recall from "Shrek" (2001) that she was a conventional princess only by day, and became an ogre after nightfall. When she was rescued from marriage to Lord Farquaad with Shrek's kiss, she became an ogre full-time. Before that she was a human, I guess, although her father was a frog. Inter-species reproduction is so common in Far Far Away that it makes irrelevant such questions as whether Kermit and Miss Piggy ever had sex. Remember that the dragon and Donkey fell in love in the first film. For someone like me who has never understood how birds and snakes do it, thoughts of their marital adventures boggles the mind.
Back again this time are the two supporting stars from the earlier films, Donkey (voice of Eddie Murphy) and Puss in Boots (voice of Antonio Banderas). But they're reduced to being friends and traveling partners and are never really foregrounded. At one point, magically, they switch bodies and talk in each other's voices, but that's what it amounts to: They talk in each other's voices. Such a thing is not intrinsically funny, unless it is plot or character-driven. Little really depends on it or comes from it, except for a weak little sight gag at the end. Since Murphy's vocal riffs and improvisations have been so inspired earlier in the series, we want more of him this time, not less.
Shrek, Fiona, Donkey and Puss have to sail to the land of Worcestershire to find Artie, and also encounter Prince Charming (voice of Rupert Everett), who is reduced from princehood to (in an opening scene) performing in dinner theater. Fairly arbitrary developments produce a team of heroines (Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty) who are sort of Charlie's Angels, I guess, although they provide the movie with too many characters and not enough for them to do. In the first film, they were a sly Dreamworks dig at Disney and were dumped, as obsolete, in Shrek's private swamp.
