Shrek the Third / YMMV

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Movie

Americans Hate Tingle: The French dub of the movie was so disliked in Quebec (due to its heavy use of urban Parisian accents and slang that many French Québécois viewers found incomprehensible) that politician Mario Dumont proposed a law to force all movies to be dubbed locally instead of occasionally being imported from France or Belgium.
Angst? What Angst?: Despite his uncle, King Harold dying, Artie doesn't really seem to care and doesn't grieve the former's passing at all. He mentions he knew he came from royalty but figured everyone forgot about him so it's possible he never met his uncle and wouldn't have had any connection to him to feel sad.
Awesome Music:
- The cover of Heart's "Barracuda". Yes.
- Snow White's beautiful woodland friends' lullaby suddenly becoming "Immigrant Song".
- Puss and Donkey's cover of Sly and the Family Stone's "Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Again)"
- The Eels' "Royal Pain", which even includes some perfect call-backs to "I Need Some Sleep" from the last film.
Base-Breaking Character:
- Prince Charming, some argue if he works as a standalone villain or not. Some think it's interesting to see him acting by himself, expressing sympathy for him for losing his mother and stating that him reappearing as a Dragon Ascendant makes the most sense. Others, while agreeing that he definitely needed to return, argue that he should've been The Dragon to a different villain instead, completing his character in a more organic way.
- Artie. Detractors see him as just a Celebrity Voice Actor shoehorn (in this case, Justin Timberlake), and an uninteresting character in his own right despite having a much more larger role in the film than other characters like Donkey, Puss, and Fiona while having no other interesting traits to justify it. Supporters see him as one of the only few things in the film that make it worth watching because of his relationship with Shrek, his relatable traits as a Loser Protagonist, and for having a few awesome moments that serve as the highlights of the movie particularly at the end where he convinces the villains that being evil is a matter of choice and not a force of nature.
Badass Decay:
- Shrek himself, which was noted by several reviewers. In the first movie, he curbstomped Farquaad's knights. In this one, he's much softer, and didn't do much to fight back against Charming. Shrek gets some of his badassery back in Forever After, but is largely overshadowed by the Proud Warrior Race Guy ogre tribe.
- Dragon. In the first film, she proved a serious threat to Shrek and Donkey. In this film, she only manages to fell one witch before being easily detained by Prince Charming's army. Possibly justified by her having grown more peaceful.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Gingy's life flashing before his own eyes when Hook tried to interrogate him, only to cut to Gingy singing "The Good Ship Lollipop".
Broken Base:
- Snow White leading the animals to attack the tree monsters to the tune of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song." It's either one of the best and funniest scenes in the movie or one of its many negatives.
- Likewise, King Harold's death sequence is either hilarious in a Crosses the Line Twice way or a tasteless way to handle the death of the character.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Being an Ascended Extra from the second movie, as well as pulling a Heel–Face Turn off-screen, Doris the Ugly Stepsister is quite popular and generally seen as one of the few legitimately funny characters. Helps that she's seen as a rare positive example of a transgender woman considering the time period of the movie's release, even if it's ambiguous as to whether she's trans or just very masculine.
Estrogen Brigade: While Artie is generally disliked in the Shrek fandom, he naturally garnered a minor fanbase for being an adorkable teen, much like the Once-ler. This also extends to Lancelot, despite his sole appearance involving him being a Jerkass to Artie.
Fanon Discontinuity: A major victim of this among Shrek fans, who feel its only real impact in Forever After was a scene at the start where it's revealed Shrek and Fiona have had kids.
Genius Bonus:
- The two birds that perch on Snow White's shoulders just before she sics all the forest animals on the evil trees? They're woodpeckers.
- The idea of Merlin having a nervous breakdown and deciding to get back to nature is actually from the legends, where prior to becoming Arthur's mentor he went mad from the horrors of war and lived as a wild man in the woods.
- Arthur confesses to having a crush on Gwen (Guinevere), one of his classmates.
Harsher in Hindsight: Rapunzel makes a comment about how marriages can change for the worst when babies are added. Considering how Shrek was at the beginning of the "Forever After" movie, what she said was far from a lie.
Heartwarming in Hindsight: After they switch bodies, Puss warns Donkey not to damage his boots, claiming they were made in Madrid by the finest cobbler in Spain. It would later be revealed in Puss' spin-off film revealed that the boots were actually given to Puss, and most likely made for him, by his beloved adoptive mother, Imelda.
He's Just Hiding: Prince Charming is speculated by many to have survived the prop tower falling on him by virtue of the scene looking like the window part landed on him, making it appear like it would have prevented him from being crushed under it. While its canonicity is debatable, Charming would later appear briefly during a crowd shot in the Thriller Night short, seemingly indicating that he did indeed survive.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Look at the lineup of faux-Disney Princesses - Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty... Rapunzel? But that wasn't a Disney movie... at the time.
- Merlin helps Shrek see into... the FUTURE.
- Shrek's purple clothes, giant wig and makeup in the intro resemble Duke Amiel Du H'ardcore, another character whose humor relies on Anachronism Stew. Duke Amiel's actor, Jim Sterling, also once did a video that featured a Shrek parody.
- A blonde man who is the rightful and supposed ruler of his kingdom and a hulking, green monster go on an adventure together to stop the Big Bad from taking over said kingdom, with a minor appearance from a wizard in the way. Sounds familiar?. This has not gone unnoticed by the internet. Bonus points for both films having Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song in their soundtracks.
- Prince Charming's uncanny resemblance to Jaime Lannister comes full circle with Season 8 of Game Of Thrones, where Jaime meets his end as a result of falling debris caused by a dragon, much like how Prince Charming did in this movie.
- When the pirates attack the party, Donkey yells "LOOK OUT! THEY GOT A PIANO!" Over a decade later, we would get a main character whose piano theme has become a Memetic Badass on its own.
Jerkass Woobie: Prince Charming. After enduring grief and humiliation now that he no longer has the power his mama gave him, all he wanted was his own Happily Ever After...which he probably would have gotten had he not stayed a villain by choice.
Memetic Mutation: See the franchise's page.
Moe: The ogre babies are absolutely adorable.
Moral Event Horizon: Charming crosses it when he tries to slash Artie and stab Shrek after the former's motivational speech.
Nausea Fuel: The baby throwing up all over Shrek in his Nightmare Sequence.
Shrek: Better out than in, I always say.
Nightmare Fuel: Shrek has a nightmare on the boat where he's assaulted by a Wave of Babies, reflecting his fears of being a father. When he seemingly wakes up, Puss and Donkey have ogre baby heads, with the baby-headed Donkey calling "Da-da" in a deep, unsettling voice before it cuts back to Shrek actually waking up. While comedic, the abrupt cuts and creepy tone of the scene can frighten kids.
One-Scene Wonder: Lancelot only appears in one scene where he's a complete Jerkass to Artie, but the fangirls have latched on to that one scene as an excuse to ship the two.
Padding: The entirety of Shrek the Third could arguably be considered this in relation to the series as a whole. The film has no major plot events that affect Shrek Forever After (aside from the birth of Shrek and Fiona's children and maybe King Harold's death) and none of the newly introduced major characters even appear in the subsequent film. Seriously, try watching Shrek, Shrek 2, and Forever After in that order while skipping over The Third. It has almost no bearing on the other three films. It actually makes even more sense that way, when you consider Rumpelstiltskin's appearance in this one.
Rooting for the Empire: An In-Universe example happens in the beginning when Shrek shows up in Prince Charming's play and the crowd cheers.
Sequelitis: Shrek the Third has the lowest critical rating in the series (41% on Rotten Tomatoes) and is generally seen as the movie that caused Shrek and its genre to no longer be taken seriously.
So Okay, It's Average: General consensus on Shrek the Third is that, while a major disappointment compared to its two predecessors and a stereotype of everything wrong with the "celebrity voices and pop culture references" era of animated films, it's not a terrible film in its own right and has its moments.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Despite being a main character, Donkey is woefully underused. As he's already a father to the dronkeys, the movie easily could have expanded on that to give him some interesting development with Shrek regarding the latter's fears of being a father and illustrate their differences in parenting philosophies. However, in the movie itself, Donkey acts as little more than Those Two Guys with Puss, with his role as a father almost completely forgotten barring a couple scenes with the dronkeys.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
- The movie could've done so much more with Shrek's fear of becoming a father, but it's either too direct or too subtle with it. Shrek fearing he'll become an abusive father, much like his own, is an interesting arc, but the movie only implies this in one scene. Otherwise it's just Shrek fearing children in general, which doesn't make sense at all. What's worse is that ogres eat their own babies, which is also a missed opportunity.
- Despite Artie and Fiona being cousins, they never formally interact or share any significant scenes together. One could just wonder how the opportunity could have been used for Artie to discover that his cousin had become an ogre and was also married to one.
- A lot of people were flabbergasted about the fact that Justin Timberlake was casted as Artie, and the producers did not give him a single musical number!
- This film reunites John Cleese and Eric Idle, two members of the Monty Python troupe, yet the two don't share a single scene together. Even with King Harold's early death, a flashback could've circumvented the issue.
- Isaac Carlson criticized the movie for not doing much with Fiona becoming queen of Far Far Away; despite being raised to become the queen since birth and having enough experience with fairy tale creatures and magical curses (having been turned into an ogre) to bring a new age to the kingdom, Fiona does virtually nothing of note during the ogres' short reign and primarily sits in the background while Shrek does the actual royal tasks, and she steps down as queen by the end without making any notable changes to the kingdom.
Ugly Cute: The ogre babies once more; despite being ogres, they're still plain adorable.

Game

Suspiciously Similar Song: The theme that plays when Shrek fights the pirate captain in the game is very similar to that of "He's a Pirate" from the Pirates of the Caribbean series. Considering the captain is an Expy of Jack Sparrow, this may be an outright Take That!.

YMMV / Shrek the Third

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