Shrek The Third: Most Useless Film of 2007?

Have you ever go to a party you're invited to and not have a good time? We've all had those parties that we go to and just something isn't right about it. Maybe no one is talking about anything interesting. The booze isn't that good. The only people you know are off entertaining others. So you sit there, bored out of your mind, as everyone else is laughing it up.

It's just like those movies you go to and everyone else around you is yukking it up (kind of like earlier this year where I sat in aghast over an audience full of giggling goofnuts at a pre-screening of Wild Hogs) while you sit there wondering exactly what everyone is laughing at.

I'm just not getting it anymore. I've had it with sequels and cash-grab summer movies. I've had it with audiences lining up to see the same shit over and over again while other good films get the chop. At my local 10-screen megaplex in Victoria, NINE of the screens are devoted to sequels while current "lesser" releases like Waitress, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, Paris Je'Taime and Inland Empire (among many others) refuse to even enter the city.

Shrek The Third may go down in my personal history books as the most useless film of 2007. The party where I sat and sulked in the corner. I see no reason for this motion picture to exist other than to rake in an insane amount of money and try to debunk Spider-Man 3's opening weekend. "Will it make more money?", "Will it enter the highest grossing films ever?", "Will that Antonio Banderas cat make the sad eyes again?" (I'll save you $10, he does) are the questions being asked to me by many at work and prior to last night's screening I attended. Who flippin' cares? We're just turning the gears...

Which is not to say that Shrek The Third is downright awful...well, okay, yeah it is. I will admit that I laughed on a few occasions, one in particular where a tricked-out Snow White sings a song directly used from the original classic film. And guess what...no one else laughed.

Why couldn't have a filmmaker used that joke in a completely new film, a new concept? A spinoff movie for the Snow White character, perhaps? Why is it that we have to sequel the crap out of something just to get people out to watch it? The demand for more comedies and less action films in the past few years has worked, but why not the sequels? Why aren't people voting against this by not spending their dollar?

Do people really think that all they want is to see the exact same film, over and over again? It reminds me of that classic Simpsons episode where a new Malibu Stacy doll is brought out onto the market with a new hat. Lisa is quick to point out that it's the exact same Malibu Stacy but just with a hat on it. To which Smithers retorts "But...she has a new hat!" as the exact same Stacy's fly off the shelf.

Jason
efilmcritic.com