PREMIERE.COM'S REVIEW (posted 5/18/07)

The second installment in this month's trilogy of threequels, Shrek the Third makes you long for the weepy soap opera that was Spider-Man 3 and actually look forward to the bombastic overkill that will surely be Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. Whatever wit and charm were present in the original Shrek (which, let's be honest, was massively overrated to begin with) has long since vanished, replaced by sitcom-level punchlines, lazy plotting, and flat characterizations. To give the filmmakers some credit, at least this entry dials down the moldy pop-culture gags that made Shrek 2 such a chore to sit through. But from the opening credits, Shrek the Third plays like a movie that was made entirely on autopilot; it hits all of the franchise's familiar notes without trying to make said notes seem fresh or even very funny. In case there was any doubt, this film stands as proof positive that animated blockbusters can be just as soulless and derivative as their live-action counterparts.

As their third adventure begins, Shrek (Mike Myers) and his princess bride Fiona (Cameron Diaz) are back in Far, Far Away, tending to matters of state in place of her ailing father, King Harold (John Cleese). It goes without saying that Shrek makes a lousy substitute monarch, so when the king succumbs to his illness, he has to find someone else to take the crown so that the responsibility doesn't fall on him. That someone would be Fiona's distant cousin Artie (Justin Timberlake), who is currently the least popular student at Worcester High. (Ha ha ha, Worcester! Get it? If not, the joke is made explicitly clear when one of the characters says "Like the sauce." Nice to know that the screenwriters really respect the audience's intelligence.) So Shrek, Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Puss In Boots (Antonio Banderas) head off to retrieve the kid and install him on the throne. There's only one problem: Artie doesn't want to be king and it'll take a detour to see the kooky old magician Merlin (Eric Idle) to convince him otherwise.