Shrek the Third (2007)

Rated PG, for...um, Shrek stuff?  I honestly felt like this one got tamer than the previous Shrek movies.  That's not saying it is devoid of a little edge.  After all, it didn't get the G rating.  I think that there's still a lot of potty humor, but I don't remember characters outright swearing.  That being said, I don't remember any real details from the third Shrek movie.  This is going to be a fun blog.

DIRECTORS: Chris Miller and Raman Hui

Okay, complete honesty.  After all, it's infamously the best policy.  I remember so little of this movie because there is so little to remember.  Also, I watched a pan-and-scan version, which automatically put me in a sour mood towards the movie.  For all I know, this movie is great.  But I was instantly thrown back into the primitive years where people were afraid of black bars on their square TV sets, so they'd release two copies.  Why did I watch a pan-and-scan version?  Because I got this from the library. I'm not paying good money for Shrek the Third, especially considering that I watched parts 1 and 2 on Amazon Prime.  What am I?  A savage?  Now someone massage my fingers in fine smelling creams! I must type my treatus on the third Shrek movie, post haste!

Boy, it was a mistake going right into this movie following Shrek 2.  There was an immediate shift of "Oh, isn't this fun?" to, "Oh, we're not done with this story?"  While the Shrek films (geez, I have to call them "Films" to avoid being snobby while simultaneously being snobby for throwing the word "films" around.  I hate me too.) have some character development from the eponymous character (Ooh, my pinky finger instinctively rose!), Shrek seems to work as episodic storytelling.  The first one was Shrek v. Farquaad, where he discovers that Fiona is an ogre.  Part two is about Fiona's curse.  The fourth one is an alternate reality versus Rumpelstiltskin.  But Shrek the Third desperately clung onto the goodwill of Shrek 2 because people seemed to like that movie.  Again, all of my Shrek 2 data comes from my students, who have strong opinions on Shrek.  I can see what the filmmakers were thinking.  To a certain extent, there was a plot thread borrowed from the first movie in Shrek 2.  Fiona's captivity is criminally vague in the first movie.  Again, the first movie is a commentary on archetypes, so the damsel in distress doesn't need a reason to be in distress.  It's just that she's a damsel.  But the second film is about world-building and storytelling as opposed to just archetypal satire.  

But Shrek the Third doesn't understand that there was a tonal shift from the first movie to the second movie with Fiona's background story.  If anything, the intention for Shrek the Third is a desperate attempt to clone the second film.  As such, there are threads that almost don't make sense.  While I would have loved to have this movie about Shrek growing up (and the movie regularly tells me that this is about Shrek growing up), there's a divorce between the story's main plot and the themes of the film.  Shrek is already about self-sacrifice. When Shrek embraces his human form, which he seems to detest in other people, that's the moment where he acknowledges that family life is more than himself.  While having kids is a natural extension of the Shrek evolution (which from here on be referred to as the Shrekvolution, trademark pending), Shrek's actual responsibility doesn't change.  The big moment for Shrek is that he's once again confronted with his freedom being at stake. (Again, I'm in the middle of Shrek Forever After, which handles this idea with far more verisimilitude than Shrek 2 or 3 handle it.) 

I think that there is something to be said about the fear of fatherhood. Shrek verbalizes his fear that he will not be a good parent.  But I never really get that in his internal conflict.  Just to cut straight to the point, Arthur is meant to represent Shrek stepping into the fatherhood role. Arthur, apparently a dork despite being insanely handsome and voiced by Justin Timberlake, apparently looks to Shrek on how to handle responsibility. It's through his pairing with Shrek that he grows into the leader that he was born to be.  (Or, when responsibility is thrust upon him.)  It's just that, Arthur's growth doesn't really parallel or seem inspired by Shrek at all.  Rather, Shrek acts more of a messanger and a cab driver than he does as a template for responsible adulthood.  There's a scene where Shrek sacrifices himself for Arthur.  As a metaphor, it works.  Fathers are meant to sacrifice for sons. It's basic writing right there.  But Shrek, in that moment, confesses to Arthur that he was not the first pick to take the throne, but actually Shrek was.  Shrek confesses his own lack of responsibility, inspiring him to take on this quest to bring Arthur to the Land of Far, Far Away.  Arthur, appropriately, gets upset and storms off.  It's the other fairy tale creatures who make him aware that Shrek only said those things to save Arthur's life.

But what Shrek said was true.  Shrek actively ignores the motive for his journey, passing off the role of ruler to young Arthur.  Now, maybe I missed it because I was so bored (or that it was only in the widescreen edition where the side bars were, Simpsons style), I don't really remember a come-to-Jesus moment for Shrek when Arthur returns.  After all, despite the fact that Shrek confesses his motivations under duress, it doesn't change the fact that the initial words hurt and, more importantly, that what he said was the truth.  The only thing that Shrek learns about himself in that moment isn't that he would make a good father.  It's understanding that there was no need for both characters to die when Shrek was going to die already.  Shrek's faced death in two previous movies at this point.  The choice to confront Arthur with the knowledge that Shrek could be a perfectly fine king is more of a message of withholding truths than the failure of fatherhood.  Part of me really wants to read this moment as a commentary on fatherhood being an imperfect practice.  There's something to be said for the fact that fathers shouldn't expect to be perfect fathers and that they would mess up.  But Shrek is almost fundamentally the same person at the beginning of the movie that he is at the end.

Yes, Shrek accepts that he is a father by the end.  Triplets?  (The editing and the montage ending made the number of kids really suspect.) But that's a matter of time passing.  The great gauntlet of discovering paternal instincts isn't part of the external conflict.  Instead, the film foolishly focuses on Charming's need for validation and success.  What started the film as a joke, that Charming is recreating an alternate reality where he defeated Shrek and wins Fiona's heart, is a really weird motivation in a movie that is fundamentally supposed to be about fatherhood.  That's kind of my realization, as I write about these Shrek movies. Every time that there is a deeper message to be said or explored, the movie tends to Nerf that message for the sake of easy entertainment value.  What goes from the role of self-sacrifice and the abandoning of youth turns into  people need to grow.  That's the same message as the first and second movies.  I gave props to the Shrek franchise for having its eponymous character hold onto growth from the first to second films, with a little backpedaling to be sure.  But Shrek the Third acts like the character from the first movie is confronted with the realization that he's going to be a dad and just is a better person.

I know, I keep mentioning that I'm in the middle of Shrek Forever After.  I wrote a lot of Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third on the same day and I have yet to come back and watch the end of the fourth film.  I know that Shrek, as a character, backpedals a bit for the movie, but it comes from a different place.  I really hope that we get a drastically different character by the end of the movie, considering that it is the last Shrek film. (And I just Googled and apparently, it's been in post-production for a criminally long time.  So much for a conclusion to a film franchise that takes into account growth.)  As much as I am being a snob about being "forced to write about Shrek", these aren't bad movies.  It's just that they love embracing the superficial compared to actually writing anything challenging.  Shrek the Third may be a low point in the franchise, but I'm not down and out yet.