Wake me when it’s ogre

Daniel Neman / Media General News Service
Published: May 18, 2007

You knew it was going to happen.

With so many sequels coming out this summer, it was inevitable that one of them was going to be . . . terrible.

And so, just three sequels into the summer, we have "Shrek the Third," a gross miscalculation on all fronts.

Watching it is agony. And the fact that a couple of minutes at the beginning and a couple of minutes at the end are less awful than the rest of the film does little to mitigate the audience's suffering.

It takes a long time to make an animated movie. Surely, at one point in that process, someone could have looked at the script and noticed it wasn't funny.

Someone could have heard the vocal performances and realized they were flat and lifeless. Someone could have watched any portion of the film and discovered it roused no passion but an overwhelming, deathly ennui.

A committee of four wrote the screenplay, and it is a safe bet that none of them has a sense of humor, an idea of how to tell a story or a clue.

Ordinarily, when a faulty script is submitted, the director or producer sees the problem and has it corrected, but -- you know where this is going, don't you- That's right, the director and producer were two of the writers.

And what a script they wrote. One lame joke follows another and another, until it becomes an epidemic and we realize they are never going to get any better. That is when you will desperately want to leave the theater. For me, that point came less than a half-hour into the film.

Mike Myers, with a curiously wavering Scottish accent, returns to provide the voice of Shrek, the formerly lovable ogre who this time is utterly without charm. He is next in line to become the king, a job he does not want, so he goes in search of the only other heir, a teen named Artie, who is picked on by the other kids in high school.

And no, none of the jokes about high school is funny, either. The biggest, easiest target in the world, and the writers miss it.

Shrek is joined on his quest by his two tired sidekicks, Donkey and Puss In Boots (Eddie Murphy and Antonio Banderas, who are clearly forcing the jollity). Fiona (Cameron Diaz) stays behind, because she is pregnant.

Shrek doesn't want to be a father, yet he finds himself acting as a father figure to Artie in scenes that are meant to be heartwarming but are more like heartburning.

The story snores its way to a climax that is the movie's second extended parody of bad dinner theater. Now there's a subject that is certain to appeal to children, just as the many, manypop culture references to things that were popular long before they were born (like Charlene's "I've Never Been to Me") will appeal to them.

Yes, "Shrek the Third" is one of those movies that believe simply making pop culture references is good enough; they don't have to be funny.

We're supposed to laugh uproariously just because Shrek paraphrases a line from "Jerry Maguire" or Artie cites the Jefferson Starship song "We Built This City."

Of course, from the point of view of the filmmakers, the advantage of making meaningless pop culture references is that when they are caught lifting jokes from other sources (such as Buster Keaton's "Steamboat Bill Jr." and "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"), they can just say they were making more pop culture references.

Nothing, however, can excuse all the baby vomit jokes, baby excrement jokes and, it goes without saying, baby flatulence jokes.

Going in to "Shrek the Third," the audience can be expected to feel goodwill toward the film, because of the success of the first two movies.

But every movie must stand on its own. "Shrek the Third" stands for a few minutes, but then it falls down. It falls down a cliff.

Shrek The Third

Voices: Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz

At: Carmike, Chester, Commonwealth, Crossings, Short PUmp, Southpark, Virginia Center, West Tower

FYI: Running time 1:25. Rated PG.