Armchair Theatre

The Crown Weighs Heavy, Even on an Ogre

2007 was a weird summer at the multiplex. The third *Pirates of the Caribbean* was busy collapsing under the weight of its own mythology, and *Spider-Man 3* was doing... whatever that jazz club scene was. We were drowning in threequels. So when *Shrek the Third* rolled into theaters, I think most of us expected another loud, overstuffed piñata of pop-culture references. And sure, it is that. But underneath the plastic sheen of Far Far Away, director Chris Miller actually tries to wrestle with something surprisingly mundane: the sheer, paralyzing terror of middle age.



The premise is basically a royal sitcom. King Harold (the frog, voiced by John Cleese) dies, leaving Shrek next in line for the throne. Shrek does not want it. He just wants his swamp. To make matters worse, Fiona (Cameron Diaz) is pregnant. This gives the film its most effective sequence: a nightmare where Shrek’s swamp is overrun by hundreds of belching, crying, infinitely multiplying ogre babies. The camera pushes in close on Shrek’s face, pulling the background away in a classic Hitchcock zoom. His thick green brow furrows, his massive shoulders physically sink under the imaginary weight. For a second, you completely forget you're looking at pixels. You're just watching a guy realize his youth is over.

It's an interesting shift. The first two films were about dismantling fairy tale tropes with a sneer. Now? The franchise is just a suburban family comedy wearing medieval drag. (I am not entirely sure this works, by the way. The sharp edge of the original is definitely gone.) Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian was pretty brutal, dismissing the whole enterprise as having a "barrel-scraping averageness". But I tend to agree more with A.O. Scott of The New York Times, who noted the film felt "less desperate to prove its cleverness and therefore to some extent, smarter". It stops trying so hard to be cool.



To avoid the crown, Shrek sets off to find the only other heir: a medieval high school slacker named Artie. He's voiced by Justin Timberlake, which is a compelling piece of casting. (Especially considering Timberlake and Diaz had just ended a highly publicized relationship the year before — the recording booth schedules must have been carefully managed by studio executives.) Timberlake does not play Artie with any pop-star swagger. Instead, he gives the kid a nasal, defensive posture. You can actually hear the slouch in his voice. When Artie delivers a climactic speech to the fairy tale villains, telling them they do not have to be defined by the ugly labels the world gives them, it's surprisingly tender.

But let's be honest about the flaws. The middle stretch sags terribly. Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) mounts a villainous takeover that feels like pure filler, and the running gag of Puss (Antonio Banderas) and Donkey (Eddie Murphy) magically switching bodies is a daytime television trope that gets tired after three minutes. The physical comedy lacks the kinetic snap of the earlier films. Instead of crisp visual wit, we get Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die" played at a frog's funeral. It's a weird, abrupt joke. Maybe it's intentional. I laughed, but I felt a little guilty about it.



At its core, *Shrek the Third* is a movie about settling down. The animation is richer, the fabrics fold more realistically, but the anarchic spirit has been fully domesticated. Whether that is a flaw or a feature genuinely depends on your patience for watching old friends get older. It's comfortable. And sometimes, on a rainy Sunday afternoon, comfortable is exactly what you need.