I liked it!
It's not as 'strong', storywise, as
Shrek 2 .. but there are many genuinely funny moments and scenes .. and (somewhat surprisingly), much of the humor is character-based; the 'pop-culture' references and top-40 songs
are still there .. but it definitely felt like there was less of those, this time around.
There did seem to be a conscious effort to give each of the characters from the previous films (and there are a
lot of them, now!) a 'moment' in the spotlight. And, of course, there's a slew of new characters, now, too! The princesses were kinda fun; especially Cinderella (who has a crazy Jan Brady 'talking to herself' thing going on, in some scenes
).
Arthur was a bit of a quandry. He starts off as a somewhat 'sympathetic' character when we first meet him .. but over the course of the story he is, by turns, annoyingly 'angsty' or superficially 'hammy'; he doesn't seem to be 'king' material .. but that doesn't seem to be a problem of much real concern; he is mostly the 'macguffin' which Shrek, Donkey, and Puss go in search of.
Prince Charming as the 'heavy' this time around .. well, he's nowhere near as threatening as the cold-blooded Fairy Godmother, nor even the calculating Farquaad .. which is why he has a literal army of henchmen, I suppose. Rupert Everett does a great job with the voice, but he really isn't much more than a 'himbo' .. and his ultimate 'evil plan' seems much too easily defeated. Actually, Charming and Arthur look so much alike, that I thought it would eventually be revealed that they were related .. but that was not to be.
As I said, though, there are plenty of great,
funny sequences sprinkled throughout, which ultimately are what 'make' the movie. I've never heard so much laughing during a death scene, before .. bit it
is very funny! A surreal dream sequence and a certain character's 'flashback' also got huge laughs.
There's also a lot of great,
expressive animation .. the characters from previous films have definitely benefitted from the rapid advances of CG animation technology. But it still takes a keen
human eye for detail to bring a character to 'life' .. and PDI/Dreamworks definitely has some top-notch talent in that department. There's still a little bit of 'uncanny valley' to the human characters; but I chalk most of that up to the realistic character designs.
All in all, as I said, a 'fun' film. It should do pretty well at the box office.
ShyViolet regardless, will like it because its DW, likewise
Daniel will love it, because its a sequel!
