The film opens with a brilliant meta-joke: Shrek (Mike Myers) reliving the “Once upon a time” narration of his own life, now as a domesticated, bored celebrity. When his father-in-law, King Harold (John Cleese), dies suddenly (his last words: “I’m not dead yet… just a flesh wound”—a Monty Python callback), Shrek is offered the throne of Far Far Away. He refuses, believing ogres aren’t made for ruling.
Meanwhile, the jilted Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) rallies every fairy-tale villain (the wicked stepsisters, Captain Hook, the Evil Queen, etc.) into a mob to conquer Far Far Away. Left behind, a pregnant Fiona (Cameron Diaz) forms a “Princess Resistance” with Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Rapunzel—though the latter betrays them. After a siege on the castle and a climactic stage musical battle (Charming’s big number, “I Need a Hero,” is sabotaged by Arthur’s earnest speech on personal failure), Shrek realizes he doesn’t need to be king. He returns home just as Fiona gives birth to triplets—three little green ogres.
Rupert Everett’s Prince Charming is a genius creation—a narcissistic himbo coasting on his mother’s (the Fairy Godmother) coattails. In Shrek the Third , he’s given the spotlight, but the script undermines him. His villainous motivation (“I deserve a happy ending because I’m the handsome one”) is funny, but his plan—leading a bar full of losers in a coup—lacks grandeur. The other villains (Hook, the Ugly Stepsisters) are reduced to sight gags.
Worth seeing for the princess fight and the body-swap scene, but best approached as a long epilogue to Shrek 2 rather than a proper continuation. In the pantheon of animated threequels, it’s no Toy Story 3 —it’s the Godfather Part III of ogre cinema.
In 2001, Shrek was a cultural detonation—a brutal, hilarious, and unexpectedly heartfelt dismantling of Disney’s fairy-tale orthodoxy. By 2004, Shrek 2 had perfected the formula, delivering a bigger, bolder, and emotionally sharper sequel that many still consider the franchise’s peak. Then came 2007’s Shrek the Third .
Shrek the Third is the hangover after the party. It’s watchable, occasionally clever, but fundamentally tired. It exists because the first two made a billion dollars, not because anyone had a vital story left to tell. The franchise would partially recover with Shrek Forever After (2010), which at least had the courage to imagine a world without Shrek. But the third entry remains the odd one out: a swamp-dwelling ogre forced to be a king, and a film forced to be a sequel.
The solution: find the only other heir, Fiona’s vapid, theater-obsessed nephew, Arthur Pendragon (Justin Timberlake), who’s a miserable teenager at a medieval high school (complete with jocks, goths, and lunch ladies). Shrek, Donkey (Eddie Murphy), and Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) set sail on a road trip to bring Arthur back.