Three Third Movies: Shrek The Third

How funny is it that the three biggest films of the summer so far are all the third installments of popular franchises? In addition to that, I've seen all three films. Considering that I saw all of maybe 3-4 films last summer, I guess that's a good start.

None of the three big third movies, Spider-Man 3, Shrek The Third, and Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End, are better than the original films whose success lead to them. However, they are all at least decent.

First up in this mini-series, Shrek The Third.

After the surprisingly good Shrek 2, I kind of wondered if Shrek The Third would be any good at all. The buzz wasn't all that great. Then, I watched the HBO First Look special and it made me want to see it more. Shrek The Third ended up being better than I thought it would be, but not as good as its predecessors. Like the previous films, the voice acting was pretty good. The newcomers to the Shrek series (such as Justin Timberlake as Artie) did a good job too.

One of the things I really liked about this movie was the fact that it relied less on pop culture for gags than Shrek 2 did. There were some really funny subversive gags here, such as a death scene that occurs early in the movie. Also, the supporting cast such as Pinocchio and Gingy, had some very funny scenes. At the same time, there weren't as many gags in this movie as the other two. That probably was because of the slightly more serious storyline which dealt with Shrek's impending fatherhood.

There were some problems with this movie, though. For one thing, the villain and his storyline were pretty weak. Also, there were probably too many characters given the running time. I wanted more of characters such as Merlin and the Princess Squad. I also think that there should've been a little more time used to flesh out Artie's character.

Overall, I liked Shrek The Third. It was funny and entertaining. However, it's not as good as the other two films.

Shrek > Shrek 2 > Shrek The Third