'Shrek the Third' is more of the same, and yet, less

DreamWorks' "Shrek the Third," the latest installment of its obscenely lucrative animated franchise about a big green ogre, seems to be entering the busy summer marketplace with more bad buzz, ill will and low expectations than any of its sister blockbuster sequels.

The first strike against it is the simple fact that it's the third episode of a series, and movie history tells us that this is the point where the inspiration behind a good premise invariably wanes and the rot becomes noticeable.

In the wake of "Shrek 2's" $920 million gross in 2004, the franchise also has been hit by a certain backlash in the press. Did a movie that trashed fairy-tale traditions and aimed rude humor at very young children really deserve to be the biggest-grossing kid movie of all time?

This resentment was augmented last month when a watchdog group attacked the new "Shrek" as a nutritionally bad role model because of its tie-in endorsements of M&Ms, Snickers, Froot Loops, Frosted Flakes, Pop-tarts, Cheeze-its, Keebler cookies and other junk foods.

Then the early reviews in the industry trade papers were discouraging. The Hollywood Reporter thought "something essential was missing" and, under a headline, "A Bit Short of 'Shrek'-acular," Variety hit the series for its "signs of encroaching middle age."

And now that the film is opening to the world, I have to join this chorus of negativity and report that "Shrek the Third" is a fairly underwhelming experience for man or child -- not so much bad as just more of the same, with little of the original's novelty or freshness.

The premise -- which has Prince Charming recruiting an army of fairy-tale villains to take over the Kingdom of Far, Far Away while Shrek tries to bring the young King Arthur to its throne -- is not so much a story as a crowded excuse for gags and one-liners.

The tone of the humor is slightly less crude than that of parts 1 and 2 (though poop, vomit and sex jokes abound), but it's essentially the same old shtick: a fractured fairy tale loaded to the gills with anachronisms, some clever, many not.

The computer animation is excellent, no question about that, and some of the action sequences are imaginative. But there's nothing technically new or special to wow the audience or make a critic believe the triple-digit-million-dollar budget was well spent.

All the regular characters are back and each has his charm. I particularly like Puss in Boots, the musketeer cat voiced by Antonio Banderas. But overall, the act is tired, and the new King Arthur character (weakly voiced by Justin Timberlake) is a bore.

Andrew Adamson, the director of the first two "Shrek" outings, has moved on to the "Narnia" series, and while his replacement, Chris Miller, works hard to maintain the tradition, he simply doesn't have the same flair for this kind of tongue-in-cheek juvenile ribaldry.

All told, "Shrek the Third" is an innocuous, mildly entertaining, instantly forgettable hodgepodge that's certainly not worth rushing out to see. Does that matter? Will the movie, as one Internet movie site predicted, lay an egg?

One can hope, but I doubt it. The film may be flimsy but it's an expensive new version of a winning formula and -- as "Pirates 2" and "Spider-Man 3" proved -- box-office success in the era of monster sequels has nothing to do with quality. Build it and they will come.