Meanwhile, back in Far, Far Away, Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) has mounted yet another campaign to claim the crown for himself, this time with an assist from other fairy tale villains like Captain Hook (Ian McShane) and Rumplestiltskin. Standing in the way are Fiona and her fellow princesses Snow White (Amy Poehler), Cinderella (Amy Sedaris), and Sleeping Beauty (Cheri Oteri), who do their best to protect the city when they aren't bickering with each other. As if that's not enough, Fiona and Shrek are about to become parents, thus paving the way for Shrek 4, due in 2010.

Even though there's a lot of incident packed into Shrek the Third, director Chris Miller (taking over from Andrew Adamson, who has since moved on to another fantasy land, Narnia) doesn't seem at all involved in the story he's telling. In scene after scene, he and the film's four screenwriters set up potentially interesting situations only to allow them to play out in the most perfunctory way possible. Take Merlin, who has been recast here as a kind of fairy tale hippie that has grown somewhat distrustful of magic. A wizard who doesn't like magic? Great idea! But the filmmakers can't locate the humor in this scenario and the character is allowed to become just another dated flower power stereotype. Later on, Donkey and Puss briefly switch bodies and the best joke these guys can come up with involves Donkey-as-Puss learning how to walk in those boots without tripping.

If Miller is just going through the motions in those scenes, he does appear to be genuinely intrigued by Shrek's fears about his impending fatherhood. But he approaches this material with a deadly seriousness that seems at odds with the interests of the film's target audience. One can only imagine how kids will react to a dream sequence in which Shrek's beloved swampland hovel is invaded by hundreds of smiling, crying, and burping baby ogres. It's one of the most disturbing hallucinations to appear in a mainstream animated feature since those creepy pink elephants cavorted in Dumbo's alcohol-induced fever dream.

Even die-hard fans of the first two films will have a hard time finding anything memorable in Shrek the Third. It would be one thing if the film failed because of grand ambitions that it wasn't able to live up to. But really, it's just a spectacularly lazy movie that's content to trod the same well-worn ground as its predecessors. If you're going to spend your summer watching repeats, you might as well stay home and see 'em on your TV for free.

— Ethan Alter