Shrek the Third Movie Review

I am a real Shrek lover. I thought the first 2 movies were funny, interesting, and had great content for both kids and adults, making them perfect family movies.

My husband and I decided to take our 2 youngest children to the movies today for the matinee. Their ages are 5 and 3. They also love Shrek and all of the characters in the previous Shrek films.

Shrek The Third was a bit of a disappointment for both my husband and me. The kids said they enjoyed it, but they did get a bit restless. My 3 year old actually fell asleep during the last half hour. I kept chomping popcorn to try to keep from falling to sleep myself.

We felt as though we spent the whole movie waiting for something to happen. We were waiting for the jokes, waiting for the excitement, waiting for it to brighten up and to not feel so dark. There really was very little laughter in the movie until the last 5 minutes.

So, basically, we found Shrek the Third was lacking in entertainment value this time around. It had the feel of a transition movie, one that is meant to be a bridge between the different generations of movies in a series. As a stand-alone movie, it lacked what we have come to expect from the Shrek series and its funny characters.

Below is a brief summary of the movie. If you don't want to read anything about the content of the movie, please do not read any further.

The movie starts out with Fiona's father, the King, being very sick. Shrek needs to take over some of the King's duties to help out. (We did get a little chuckle out of this part of the movie.) Shrek manages to fumble through his duties grumbling and complaining all the way. He then receives word that the King is in critical condition. Panic then sets in when the King tells him he is next in line to the throne. Shrek is able to get the King to tell him there is another heir, before he dies, a nephew to the King, who can take over if Shrek does not want to lead the kingdom.

Now the journey begins.

Shrek, Donkey, and Boots set sail to find Arthur, the King's nephew, to take his rightful place as the new King. Of course there are a few mishaps along the way. Charming has been planning a take over of the kingdom since he found out about the King's illness. He manages to rally all of the Villains behind him in his hostile take over of Far Far Away. Shrek finds Arthur in a medieval boarding school. He is a scrawny high school kid who finds himself at the bottom of the pecking order with his classmates. When the group returns to Far Far Away, they find it in ruins from Charming and his band of Villains. Of course Shrek must save Fiona and the others from the clutches of the no good Prince. Arthur and Shrek work together to defeat Charming and help the Villains realize they have hopes and dreams of their own, and that they don't want to be outlaws forever.