Shrek, Donkey and Puss n Boots aren't quite as funny as previous incarnations but there's still plenty to recommend Shrek the Third, screened for the first time last week.
Highlights include a priceless slice of ham acting via John Cleese's dying scene as a frog king eager to milk every drop of sympathy from his mourners. The so-ugly-they're-cute baby Shrek-ettes steal every scene they're in. And the songs alternate between classic rock and campy schmaltz, smartly setting the mood for each set piece.
The story: Shrek (Mike Meyers), chafing from the pomp and waist-cinching circumstances of court life, leaves a pregnant Fiona (sincere Cameron Diaz) and sets off with his sidekicks to persuade a picked-on prince (Justin Timberlake) to take over the throne.
Meanwhile, vain dinner theater actor Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) rallies a crew of freak fairtytale losers to attack Far Far Away, where he forces his captives to stage a ye old cornball musical in the Andrew Lloyd Weber mode. When the Shrek possee, aided by a pot-smoking Merlin (Monty Python's over the top Eric idle in), return, Prince "Artie" delivers a feel good speech and everybody lives happily ever after, or until Shrek IV comes down the pike.
Shrek stalwarts Rupert Everett, Eddie Murphy and Antonio Banderas acquit themselves honorably. And If Myers seems a tad reined in, the visuals conjured by DreamWorks Animation / PDI only grow more extravagant in this sequel, setting new benchmarks for photorealistic character and landscape detail.
