Shrek the Third

Shrek the Third (also simply known as Shrek 3) is a 2007 American computer-animated fantasy comedy film directed by Chris Miller and co-directed by Raman Hui. It is the third installment in the Shrek film franchise and serves as a sequel to mh:greatestmovies:Shrek 2. The premiered at the Mann Village Theatre, Westwood in Los Angeles on May 6, 2007, and was released in the United States on May 18, 2007.

Plot
When King Harold suddenly croaks, Shrek learns he will have to rule the land of Far, Far Away, unless he can find a suitable heir to the throne. The most promising candidate is Princess Fiona's cousin Artie, a teenage slacker in a medieval high school. Shrek and his trusted companions, Donkey and Puss in Boots, set out to bring Artie back but find their mission is a bigger challenge than they expected.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) This film is inferior to the first two Shrek films, and it lacks any charm or charisma of the first two in terms of storytelling, characters, music, and humor, as almost every joke in the film is incredibly tasteless and unfunny compared to the first two, particularly when Shrek accidentally puts his sword into a guy's shoulder while practicing knighting.
 * 2) * On the topic of lacking the charm of the previous two films, Shrek the Third lacks many of the characteristic things from the previous two films and its follow-up including; a character reading a fairy tale in the beginning, an appearance from Fiona's human form, Shrek and Fiona kissing to solve the conflict, and a dance party at the end.
 * 3) The real reason for the existence of this third installment within the Shrek franchise was that DreamWorks Studios wanted to face or be superior to other animation studios such as Disney (who was going through the second dark age), Pixar, Blue Sky, etc.; So it was not only a continuation of Shrek, but also an opportunity for the studio to overload or oversell any product that belonged to or had the name of Shrek. This in itself is more evident when in different interviews that were made, the producers of the film such as DreamWorks claimed that this film (Shrek the Third) would be the one that would expand the Shrek franchise; however, this film, instead of being the one that would open, expand or exploit the market with Shrek, was responsible for the franchise ending prematurely in 2010.
 * 4) *A perfect example that this movie was DreamWorks' attempt to stand up to the other animation studios was that it had a gigantic marketing campaign, far surpassing the one featured by Pixar's mh:greatestmovies:Ratatouille movie.
 * 5) *Aside from the above, another example of the movie wanting to overload Shrek's name is that it had the original release date of November 2006; however, it ended ahead of May 18, 2007, to compete with the premiere of Sony's "Spider-Man 3" (which had already been released for a week) and Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" (which was to be released a week later), where their marketing took care of everything possible that the public did not pay attention to the aforementioned films.
 * 6) **Although it should be noted that premiering in front of those two films that were of high level affected the film's box office performance, since Shrek: The Third took a long time to reach or exceed 750 million, not to mention the fact that different box office screenings said that it was going to raise between 870 or 930 million. In turn for a long period of time it was not known in a definite way if its box office was 813 or 796 million dollars.
 * 7) *Another good example that proves that the only thing DreamWorks Studios wanted with this movie was to sell only Shrek merchandise is that in all the posters, merchandise, or toys of the movie, absolutely or nothing more than just the new characters of the movie appear like Arthur, Merlin, the fairy tale creatures, the princesses, and the fairy tale villains (not to mention the fact that all these characters except for Arthur are not important to the film's plot).
 * 8) Although it may not seem like it, this film went through problems during its production, since Andrew Adamson, who was the director and main screenwriter of the second Shrek, had to abandon both the direction and the development of the script of this third film (since he was the director of the "The Chronicles of Narnia" films) so due to scheduling problems he had not worked on the main script of the film, despite presenting some drafts. The same thing happened with the scriptwriters of previous Shrek films such as J David Stem, Joe Stillman, David N. Weiss, Kelly Asbury, Cody Cameron, and Conrad Vernon, who like Andrew did not work on the production of the film's script, apart from the aforementioned this film despite the fact that it had Chris Miller's job (who was the scriptwriter of the first film), this third film itself had the participation of people outside the concept presented by Shrek, but who were closer to the concept presented by the Madagascar films, even the film had or even had up to three drafts that in the end did not convince the executives as DreamWorks producers, who in the end had to combine each of the drafts to make the main script.
 * 9) *The best evidence that producers as writers had trouble writing the film's script was that the film itself copied various concepts from the Madagascar and Bee Movie films, for the construction of the story.
 * 10) **The story, rather than being a sequel or momentous journey for the main characters and minor characters feel more like a complete filler story, which has no impact at the end.
 * 11) **The story has too many script conveniences to progress the protagonists' journey.
 * 12) **All its protagonists are very one-dimensional since their development or evolution is very flat.
 * 13) **The main premise of the film is completely lost as it jumps from concept to concept.
 * 14) **The movie presents a very serious premise that is full of simple comedy or grotesque humor.
 * 15) **The movie uses popular songs at the wrong times.
 * 16) **Main villains as secondary villains have mild reasons to be antagonists, as they are not threats and are only relegated to mh:loathsomecharacters:Butt-Monkey.
 * 17) **Many of the supporting characters are only there to serve as comic relief.
 * 18) **Each extra characters or environment that appear in the film are typical tropes or clichés in the adventure movie.
 * 19) ** Violence-like dark moments feel too flat because they are not taken seriously, or flat out they have comedy.
 * 20) **The film repeats too much the environment where the story takes place.
 * 21) **The third act, rather than being an evolution of the protagonist or a battle where he defeats the villain, ends with extremely superficial or conventional moments.
 * 22) *Another good example is that this film, although it had four writers to build the script, the truth is that the film had eleven people to build the story, which makes clear the lack of coordination or authority for this project.
 * 23) The film completely misses a good premise (Shrek trying to be king). Instead, he decides to implant or jump in different contexts throughout the film, which contributes little or almost nothing to the plot.
 * 24) Despite being a DreamWorks movie, Shrek The Third makes absolutely all the mistakes that the Disney sequels made, which instead of being progress as a franchise, is simply overvaluing and clinging too much to a franchise just because it makes money, This also leaves the film very bad if we compare it with the movies mh:greatestmovies:Kung Fu Panda 3 and mh:greatestmovies:How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World respectively:
 * 25) *The protagonist is apparently one-dimensional since she does not learn anything or Gary Stu since she is not in danger and everything goes well for her (Shrek does not learn anything from this adventure and does not really face anything).
 * 26) *The story far from being a continuation seems a separate story (Shrek wants to avoid responsibilities)
 * 27) *Of all the protagonists, only one is the one that stands out (Except for Shrek, the other protagonists are only filling or comic filling).
 * 28) *Clinging to the past of the movies without exploring its potential in the world (Having Prince Charming again as an antagonist).
 * 29) *The story repeats many clichés to continue it (The movie uses a lot of clichés in a very blatant way).
 * 30) *The music instead of being relaxing is out of place (The songs are not memorable).
 * 31) *The story is going nowhere (Shrek and the other characters learn nothing from this adventure).
 * 32) *Several of its secondary characters are only there to continue the story, although, in the end, they are useless (Arturo, Merlin, The Princesses, and the fairy tale villains do not contribute anything to the storied franchise).
 * 33) *Characters act strangely (All characters are shown lacking in emotion and empathy).
 * 34) *The story has too many plot holes (The movie has several inconsistencies with Shrek 2 or the Shrek Universe).
 * 35) *The resolution of the film has too many script conveniences or is solved in the most stupid way possible (The villains are going to take down the protagonist and his allies, but they redeem themselves with the typical trope of generic cliché speech).
 * 36) *The villain instead of being a threat is a bore, boastful and cowardly, being the shadow of the former antagonists (Prince Charming is never shown as a real threat)
 * 37) *Everyone lives happily ever after except the villain (all characters, including minor villains, are good and will live happily ever after, except Enchantress, who is crushed by a tower).
 * 38) The film can be way too dark and edgy for a children's film because there is a surprisingly large count of casualties... in a children's film. Particular examples include a scene where Shrek accidentally causes a ship to sink as dozens of people are killed in the process, as well as the deaths of King Harold and Prince Charming, respectively.
 * 39) *It doesn't help that Shrek's nightmare sequence is too frightening for a children's movie, especially the part where the ogre baby-faced Donkey says "Dada!".
 * 40) Another major problem with this film is that as in the case of  mh:awfulmovies:Ice Age: Collision Course , it does not know how to correctly distribute the theme or main story of the film, in addition to this being the first film in the Shrek franchise that has an excessive number of subplots precisely fifteen (being more than four or five that were adequately developed in mh:greatestmovies:Shrek, mh:greatestmovies:Shrek 2, mh:greatestmovies:Shrek Forever After and mh:greatestmovies:Puss in Boots), this being a serious problem since the film does not define which plot is the main one of the film, for mention that only three subplots stand out, while all the others have terrible development or execution that makes them feel rushed and out of context, as well as not being adequately resolved:
 * 41) *As already mentioned, the film has a total of fifteen subplots of which only three stand out, which instead of offering something interesting, are only overloading the film, of all these they only stand out:
 * 42) **Shrek, Donkey, and Puss are on their journey in search of Artie to be a new King.
 * 43) **Prince Charming taking revenge on Shrek and his friends.
 * 44) **Shrek has dilemmas about having children and being a good father.
 * 45) *Only these three subplots are the only relevant ones in the movies, while the other subplots, as already mentioned, are only filler, and hardly contribute to the film, since some are easily forgotten or are left in the second and third planes:
 * 46) **Shrek assuming the responsibilities of being king.
 * 47) **Shrek and Fiona seek to start a family.
 * 48) **Shrek seeks to evade the responsibilities of being king.
 * 49) **The death of King Harold.
 * 50) **Fiona is pregnant and will have children.
 * 51) **Prince Charming and all the villains stage a coup by taking over Far Far Away.
 * 52) **Artie and Shrek become friends.
 * 53) **Artie with his "abandoned marginalized and misunderstood young man" dilemma.
 * 54) **Donkey and Puss changing bodies.
 * 55) **All of Shrek's friends rebel against Prince Charming
 * 56) **Prince Charming seeks to perform a musical theater play to become king.
 * 57) **Romance between Prince Charming and Rapunzel
 * 58) The fairy tale creatures (e.g. Pinocchio, the Three Little Pigs, etc.) are rather pointless, as they barely contribute anything to the plot.
 * 59) Shrek's character arc of becoming a father with babies is botched in terms of execution; in Shrek 2 he was afraid of losing Fiona, reinforced by well-written dialogue and somber scenes of contemplation. The way this film treats this involves visualizing his fears of raising babies in the form of a nightmare, which is rather uncompelling in terms of execution.
 * 60) *This plot of Shrek about to become a father also feels very unnecessary and forced, there are only a few scenes that focus on this and the ogre babies are only there so that the movie can have a happy ending but other than that, this contributes nothing to the film.
 * 61) Even though the first two acts have their decent moments, however, the third act falls to a predictable and unfunny finale.
 * 62) *On the topic of predictability, if one looks closely at some of the promotional posters, trailers, and even the DVD cover for the film, the ogre babies are seen, which just spoils the ending.
 * 63) Nearly everyone in this film seemingly acts very differently from in the previous films; for example, Shrek's entire character is changed to fit the babies into the story.
 * 64) King Harold's death is very tasteless, as he does not one, but two fake-out deaths, before he dies for real this time; his death is also supposed to be heartbreaking and serious, but it is instead filled with pointless and unfunny gags, like when he eats a fly after his second fake-out death and it's not really a good idea to make this scene like this, it RUINS everything in the emotional scene!
 * 65) *Speaking of the death of King Harold, it at some point feels forced, because the character although he had a leading role in Shrek 2, the truth is that he was used in a relatively short time within the franchise, so that his death does not make it emotional or endearing as was the case with the deaths in the Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon trilogies respectively.
 * 66) **Besides it is useless that the character is presented from his first appearance (Shrek 2) not as a deuteragonist but more as a redemptive antihero.
 * 67) *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7NcgNF-xFw, Another problem with the death of King Harold is that it is not memorable, due to its animation, since its animation or the movements that the character makes are too flat (this being visible when he speaks), it reaches some grotesque point (mainly when he fakes his death) and the panoramic view that is made only focuses on his face, completely ruining the moment.
 * 68) *The attitude of the characters who witnessed his death (mainly Puss, Shrek, and Fiona) do not show an attitude of humanity or melancholy, but of almost disinterest and apathy.
 * 69) *A very notorious problem is that John Cleese's voice as King Harold sounds too overwhelming, muffled, and feigned causing his voice to cause laughter or involuntary comedy, this is more evident when in the international dubbing of the films, the voice actors of King Harold use tones to express sadness.
 * 70) *Apart from the above, his death does not cause emotional damage or development to the main character (Shrek) or the deuteragonists (Donkey, Puss, Fiona, Lilian, or Arthur), not to mention that it is easily or completely forgotten during the second and third act.
 * 71) Prince Charming is supposed to be the main antagonist of the film and is actually a reasonable choice in terms of his motivations; however, he's basically treated as a mh:loathsomecharacters: Butt-Monkey, which makes the film's audience feel a bit of sympathy for him when they aren't supposed to; he is also bland as the main villain of the film and is not as threatening or entertaining as Lord Farquaad (Shrek), Fairy Godmother (Shrek 2) or Rumpelstiltskin (Shrek Forever After: The Final Chapter) instead he literally behaves like a spoiled brat and you can't take him seriously.
 * 72) *His evil plan basically consists of setting up a musical play in which he intends to kill Shrek in front of the kingdom, and when this happens at the end of the movie neither Shrek, the kingdom, or even the viewer take him seriously due to his behavior (and awful singing) to the point where Charming's play becomes a Shrek's stand-up in which he constantly ridiculizes him.
 * 73) The overused and annoying crying baby sound is used for the first ogre baby in Shrek's nightmare after it pukes all over him.
 * 74) While the musical score is decent, the soundtrack is used incorrectly in some scenes:
 * 75) *One scene attempts to use Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song", but it gets the timing of the scream completely wrong and then proceeds to play a different song shortly after.
 * 76) *Some of the song choices themselves do not fit the tone in some scenes, with the biggest offender being the Damien Rice song "9 Crimes", since the scene it plays in is supposed to be sad and dour, but it becomes confusing when a song about infidelity is being played; there is also "Live and Let Die" from the 1973 James Bond film of the same name, which plays during King Harold's funeral.
 * 77) Shrek and Fiona's babies add absolutely nothing to the story and plot other than being a typical "happy ending" for our main characters.
 * 78) The subplot of Puss and Donkey's bodies being switched in the style of Freaky Friday is rather pointless and serves no reason to exist other than to give the duo something to do in this film.
 * 79) As previously mentioned, the majority of the attempts at humor are tasteless and offensive, especially Shrek's infamous "Well, someone better be dying!" line right before the scene immediately cuts to King Harold on his death bed.
 * 80) *It also overuses gross-out humor which serves no purpose in the story, whereas in the previous two films, the gross-out humor at least had some sort of thematic purpose and was used to signify the gross aspects of ogres (e.g. in the dinner scene in Shrek 2, Fiona's burp is something she and Shrek bond over and it causes King Harold to resent Shrek even more).
 * 81) Artie being bullied all the time in school and being unpopular is a weak character decision for the main character.
 * 82) The film presents different incongruities or plot gaps with the story that is presented as from the Shrek franchise itself:
 * 83) *Why did Charming end up poor and working in a canteen if his mother had a large potion business?
 * 84) *Why is Charming alone? Wasn't sure he supposed to have too many servants of his mother's at his disposal?
 * 85) *It's never explained what happened with the empire of potions of the Fairy Godmother.
 * 86) *When did Fiona found out that she was pregnant with Shrek's children?
 * 87) *Why was Artie an outcast student if he was the nephew of a king?
 * 88) *How did the fairy tale villains arrive or find the area where Shrek was shipwrecked, and how they return so quickly to the kingdom of Far Far Away?
 * 89) *Why didn’t the princesses escape from prison if they had different abilities to do so?
 * 90) *When did Charming convince or fall in love with Rapunzel?
 * 91) *Why the students of Arthur's high school so calm in seeing Shrek when he is an ogre?
 * 92) *Why didn’t the population or the army of Far Far Away defend the kingdom from Charming and the villains?
 * 93) *How come the kingdom of Far Far Away ended up in misery or ruin from Charming's coup if only a day had passed?
 * 94) *Why is the population of the kingdom of Far Far Away very quiet despite having just suffered a putsch and the kingdom being sacked?
 * 95) *How did Puss and Donkey manage to free their friends and reach the castle of the kingdom so fast if you suppose that they did not know where they were caged (except for Pinocchio and Gingy) and the distance from the castle to the kingdom is enormous?
 * 96) *How did Merlin come to the Far Far Away kingdom if he never knew the kingdom?
 * 97) *How did Arthur did not leave the kingdom so quickly if logically he should already be out of the kingdom, however when he meets Donkey and Puss he was just passing through the gardens, assuming that he had already spent a long time since discussing him with Shrek?
 * 98) *Why did the villains faithfully obey Charming if the latter mostly behaves like a tantrum child?
 * 99) *How did the villains manage to defeat or subdue the kingdom very easily if it has a gigantic numerical difference? Or because they could not be defeated since they are very few?
 * 100) *How come the Far Far Away guards didn't realize that Puss and Donkey were freeing the fairy creatures, if you assume they were patrolling the entire kingdom?
 * 101) *Why did Dragon (Donkey's wife) let herself be defeated so quickly (when she has shown herself to possess great strength and fire breath) when her husband, children and friends are in danger?
 * 102) *How did Arthur manage to convince the fairy tale villains to give up their evil actions very easily when he was a bullied student unable to make his peers (subjects with less evil alignment) stop teasing him?
 * 103) The animation, although an improvement over the animation of the first two Shrek films, has an unpleasant color palette, with the background colors being just brown, gray and dark yellow, unlike the previous films that were more colorful.
 * 104) *Speaking of the animation of the film, there are very notorious moments (mainly in the harbor, the house of Merlin, and the kingdom of Far Far Away) where the exterior shots of the landscape like the clouds and the wind are too static.
 * 105) *At the same time, some renderings are poorly polished, textures look fake (or are game-like), and various background characters lack expressions.
 * 106) Poor direction by Chris Miller and Raman Hui whose takes are always static in this film.
 * 107) *It's more glaring knowing that Chris Miller directed mh:greatestmovies:Puss in Boots and Chris' direction in Puss in Boots is really good.
 * 108) Unlike mh:greatestmovies:Shrek, mh:greatestmovies:Shrek 2, and mh:greatestmovies:Shrek Forever After that most of the shots towards the characters were American shots, medium-long shots, and wide shots in all the scenes in which they appeared (which gave a good reflection of the environment and the exterior), practically all the shots that are made of the characters in Shrek the Third are limited only to the very close-up, close-up or medium close-up, and in a few exceptions to the general medium shot, which in addition to limiting too much. The atmosphere shown in the film shows that the direction, production and design of the animation in Shrek the Third was extremely lazy.
 * 109) The film has far too many protagonists, including new characters such as the princesses, Arthur Pendragon, and Merlin the Wizard, and as a result, the story becomes confusing and muddled.
 * 110) *In fact, there are only 3 relevant characters in the story: Shrek, Arthur and Prince Charming since the others (even Fiona who only tells Shrek that she is pregnant and allies with the princesses against Charming) don't or barely contribute anything to the story
 * 111) While the main cast returns for this film, the vocal performance of some actors feels very artificial or muffled, this being more in line with actors John Cleese, Eric Idle, Justin Timberlake, Ian McShane, Susanne Blakeslee, and Regis Philbin.
 * 112) In the different dubs that were made of the film, too many idioms or slang are used in the scene where Shrek, Donkey, and Puss are at Artie's school, which feel out of context or don't fit the scene.
 * 113) It is implied Fiona received her karate-like melee skills from her mother; this contradicts the inference in the first film that she taught herself melee during her time in the Dragon's Keep.
 * 114) Apparently, Donkey has actually gone to high school and college... for some strange reason, despite being an animal.
 * 115) Poor editing that makes Far Far Away looks more like an avenue than the realm of the second movie
 * 116) As already mentioned in the previous points, the film introduces too many main characters as secondary characters, however unlike the mh:greatestmovies:Shrek, mh:greatestmovies:Shrek 2, mh:greatestmovies:Shrek Forever After and mh:greatestmovies:Puss in Boots, like the other animated films with a large variety of characters such as mh:greatestmovies:Rango, mh:greatestmovies:Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse, mh:greatestmovies:The Incredibles or mh:greatestmovies:Incredibles 2, and the mh:greatestmovies:Toy Story franchise, Shrek the Third wastes the most of its characters that most are only to sell in marketing, not to mention the fact that the characters have too much, that they make them feel out of place, or as parodies of the.
 * 117) *For this reason, it is almost difficult to identify or worry about what happens to the characters at the same time, each of them, whether they are the classics or the new ones, has too many problems that make them look one-dimensional or flanked, since finally none has development, in fact some of them are inspired more than anything by the typical trope of an adventure film.
 * 118) **Shrek goes from the insecure ogre who doubts himself with the world around him to an almost indifferent or apathetic subject who wants to evade his responsibilities.
 * 119) **Donkey is shown to be the idiot companion of the group, as opposed to the somewhat dimwitted but good-hearted, loyal and (usually) brave friend.
 * 120) ** instead of being Shrek's loyal and skilled cat companion, Puss is portrayed as an inveterate womanizer, also relegated to the group's idiot partner, not to mention that he is also portrayed as the group's bully, or joker sadist.
 * 121) **Fiona is portrayed as the typical trope of the protagonist's fragile girlfriend or wife, instead of being the princess who wants everyone to see that Shrek has humanity.
 * 122) **Queen Lilian went from a good advisor and tolerant mother to just a weak old woman with skills.
 * 123) **Artie is the typical immature character who, by chance of fate, must be king, and does not want to accept that position, although he finally agrees to become king only for interest.
 * 124) **Merlin is the typical senile old man with an insane, clumsy or perverted attitude, who instead of being a powerful sorcerer that he is supposed to be, is a useless disabled old man, and ignorant in several aspects
 * 125) **All princesses are portrayed under the typical trope of good attractive girls in an adventure story and nothing more than that; Snow White is seen as the good but pessimistic or arrogant girl, Sleeping Beauty is seen as the weak or foolish of the group, Cinderella is the naïve, shy, or innocent girl, Doris as the mariachi of the group and nothing else, and this is without mentioning that only Snow White stands out from the group.
 * 126) **The fairy tale creatures are nothing more than the typical trope of the stupid friends of the protagonist; Gingy is the only semi-authoritarian leader of the group, Lobo is apathetic of the group, the piglets are the intolerant snitches of the group, and Pinocchio is the naïve or weak character of the group. As is the case with the princesses, only Gingy stands out from the group.
 * 127) False advertising: In the different posters that came out of the film, Shrek can be seen wearing a king's suit with a king's crown. However, Shrek only wears this suit for 3 minutes and at no time in the film is he seen with a Crown. That also implied that Shrek was actually going to become the new king when in the film after finding out that he's supposed to be the new king, he rejects this and goes looking for Arthur so that he can be it.
 * 128) *On a movie poster, you can see Merlin alongside Shrek's friends (the fairy tale creatures) in a guard pose, however, none of these characters are found together in the movie.
 * 129) *In a promotional poster you can see Shrek (with the king's crown) along with all his friends and the new characters (Artie, the Princesses, and Merlin) running through one of the streets of Far Far Away from Charming and his henchmen. However this never happens in the movie.
 * 130) *In the most widely used movie poster for worldwide theatrical distribution, Shrek can be seen with a sword and knight armor, Arthur with Camelot's sword, Merlin with two blasts of blue power, and Prince Charming as an ally or Shrek's friend. None of this happens in the movie.
 * 131) *On the poster for the DVD editions of the film, Shrek, Donkey and Puss can be seen swinging on a chain. This also does not happen in the film.
 * 132) *In an interview with the film's producers, they stated that King Harold was going to have an important role in the film or that he was going to have a leading role. However, King Harold only appears in two minutes maximum, and although his death is a plot trigger, it is easily forgotten due to its shallow depth.
 * 133) Similar to the Cars series with Cars 2, and the Alvin and the Chipmunks live-action movie franchise with Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, Shrek the Third barely has any impact on the Shrek franchise as a whole, as most of its events are ignored in mh:greatestmovies:Shrek Forever After, aside from in the end credits of the latter; its main contributions to the story are the death of King Harold, the redemption of the villains who regularly go to the Poison Apple and the birth of Shrek's children, but even so, Shrek the Third can be skipped. You can watch mh:greatestmovies:Shrek, mh:greatestmovies:Shrek 2, and mh:greatestmovies:Shrek Forever After, skipping Shrek the Third, and anything too important would not be missed. The greatest proof of how useless Shrek the Third is is that 70 or 80% of the events of Shrek the Third were completely ignored or suffered retcon in Shrek Forever After (2010) and in the short Shrek-Thriller Night (2011).
 * 134) *In Shrek The Third, Arthur and Merlin are introduced. But in Shrek Forever After: The Final Chapter, the TV specials (such as Christmas and Halloween) and the franchise's short-films, these two characters seem neither to exist anymore nor are they even mentioned. It's as if Arthur and Merlin never existed.
 * 135) *Rumpelstiltskin in Shrek the Third & Rumpelstiltskin in Shrek Forever After: The Final Chapter are completely different from each other, mainly in their look, design, appearance and personality.
 * 1) *Charming died in Shrek the Third, but he appears alive in the short Shrek - Thriller Night (2011), watching a film along with Thelonius (Lord Farquaad's executioner in the first film) and a Cyclops.

Good Qualities

 * 1) The animation is an improvement from the previous two films.
 * 2) A couple of funny scenes, such as Puss in Donkey's body doing his cute eyes thing only for the guards to find him weird, and another scene where Pinocchio tries to avoid Charming's interrogation by trying not to say "yes" or "no", as well as one scene where a guy assumes Shrek's appearance to be a costume.
 * 3) The baby ogres are cute.
 * 4) Amazing voice acting (aside from the ones mentioned in BQ#25), thanks to the cast reprising their roles.
 * 5) The dubbing of the films despite their errors in some translations are good.
 * 6) The phrase of Donkey from school, has been a precursor to a series of theories about the Shrek franchise.
 * 7) In one scene, the school band at Worcestershire Academy plays "All-Star" by Smash Mouth from the first movie, which is a nice touch.
 * 8) It features a raw reflection of the debilitating concerns of entering fatherhood, despite the plot of Shrek becoming a father with babies being poorly written and executed in this movie.
 * 9) Seth Rogen does make a decent, almost unrecognizable cameo.
 * 10) As mentioned above, some of the song choices are decent, but nowhere near as good as in the previous films.
 * 11) Though weak as an antagonist, Prince Charming's motivations to take over Far, Far Away and avenge his deceased mother are very justified and reasonable.
 * 12) The scene when Shrek and Artie talk about their respective fathers is nice and heart-warming.
 * 13) It reunited John Cleese and Eric Idle, who was known for being on Monty Python.
 * 14) Artie's speech at the end is a very nice message.
 * 15) The idea of taking all the known fairy-tale bad guys into a gang to take over a kingdom is pretty original.
 * 16) “Well, what do you expect us to do? We're just four... I mean, three super-hot princesses (Doris glares at her), two circus freaks, a pregnant ogre and an old lady!”

Critical response
Unlike the previous two Shrek films, Shrek the Third was not as well-received, as it was met with mixed reviews from critics and the audience, making it the weakest Shrek film. The film currently holds a 42% rating based on 211 reviews with the consensus reads, "Shrek the Third has pop culture potshots galore but at the expense of the heart, charm, and wit that made the first two Shreks classics". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 58 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, a step down from the first two films' "A".

Box office
Shrek the Third grossed $813 on a $160 million budget, becoming the fourth highest-grossing film of 2007 and was the box office hits.

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