‘Shrek The Third’
The movie was a wholesale rejection of glossy cartoon cheer and the general Disneyification of fairy tales, and, seemingly, came from nowhere. Its weave of barbed pop-culture jokes and emotional sincerity had been available on “The Simpsons” for years, but “Shrek” made it seem workable at the movies.
The second installment, “Shrek 2,” unbraided the gags from the feeling, tipping the balance to gleeful cynicism, which, while fun to watch, was discomforting. It seemed to come to the filmmakers much more easily than the story’s emotional dimensions.
With “Shrek the Third ,” the series still favors the jokes, Led Zeppelin , Heart, and Wings songs are put to amusing use. But director Chris Miller and the credited writers (there are four) are determined that if these films are to be a collection of riffs and gags, with a sweet afterthought for a finale, then they ought to be very good. And, largely, these are.
Of course, many of them come at the expense of the title star. The movie is stolen from him by everyone from Murphy’s jackass and Banderas’s kitty cat to Pinocchio and the Gingerbread Man, who might be this series’s funniest creation. Because of Shrek’s ubiquity as a marketing force, he seems overly familiar, as do his parenting and self-esteem woes. But his yielding the stage is an act of generosity that allows you to savor the smaller things.