When his new father-in-law, King Harold falls ill, Shrek is looked at as the heir to the land of Far, Far Away. Not one to give up his beloved swamp, Shrek recruits his friends Donkey and Puss in Boots to install the rebellious Artie as the new king. Princess Fiona, however, rallies a band of royal girlfriends to fend off a coup d'etat by the jilted Prince Charming.
Rumpelstiltskin tricks a mid-life crisis burdened Shrek into allowing himself to be erased from existence and cast in a dark alternate timeline where Rumpel rules supreme.
Spoiled by their upbringing with no idea what wild life is really like, four animals from New York Central Zoo escape, unwittingly assisted by four absconding penguins, and find themselves in Madagascar, among a bunch of merry lemurs
Manny, Sid, and Diego discover that the Ice Age is coming to an end, and join everybody for a journey to higher ground. On the trip, they discover that Manny, in fact, is not the last of the wooly mammoths.
When Sid's attempt to adopt three dinosaur eggs gets him abducted by their real mother to an underground lost world, his friends attempt to rescue him.
Manny, Diego, and Sid embark upon another adventure after their continent is set adrift. Using an iceberg as a ship, they encounter sea creatures and battle pirates as they explore a new world.
In the Valley of Peace, Po the Panda finds himself chosen as the Dragon Warrior despite the fact that he is obese and a complete novice at martial arts.
Po and his friends fight to stop a peacock villain from conquering China with a deadly new weapon, but first the Dragon Warrior must come to terms with his past.
When Fiona's father and King of Far Far Away passes away, the clumsy Shrek becomes the immediate successor of the throne. However, Shrek decides to find the legitimate heir Artie in a distant kingdom with his friends Donkey and Puss in Boots to be able return to his beloved house in the swamp with the pregnant Fiona. Meanwhile, the envious and ambitious Prince Charming joins the villains of the fairytales plotting a coup d'état to become the new king. Written by
Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
In one scene, the Gingerbread Man's life essentially passes before his eyes. Not only does this scene make reference to The Six Million Dollar Man (1974), but according to the sequence, the Gingerbread Man is or was married. See more »
Goofs
When the women escape and prepare to "take care of business", we clearly see when Snow White rips off her sleeves that she has a heart shaped tattoo with "Dopey" written on it on her right shoulder. Later, when she summons the critters to attack the tree guards, her right shoulder is bare. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Prince Charming:
Onward, Chauncey! To the highest room of the tallest tower, where my princess awaits rescue by the handsome Prince Charming!
See more »
Crazy Credits
During the beginning of the credits, Donkey and Puss dance and sing "Thank You (Falletin Me Be Mice Elf Again)" while they and the ogre triplets interact with the actors' names, which are in the shape of sticks, stitched onto stuffed animals, hung from a mobile, etc. See more »
Paul McCartney is a great songwriter. Let me just get that out of the way. But he isn't perfect. Take for example the song, "Live and Let Die", a song he wrote in the '70s for a Bond movie of the same name. The song is used briefly in Dreamworks' latest outing for everyone's favorite Scots ogre. In the song he actually wrote this line: "But if in this ever changing world in which we live in". "In which we live in"? Was he kidding? A great talent, but that is some lazy songwriting. I figure he was either exhausted, or under contract, as opposed to being inspired.
And that's the problem with this entire movie. The writing is simply not up to par. The story is loaded down with so many different elements that it is impossible to develop any of them. You can almost see the writers thinking, "Okay, now we've got a bunch of stuff for Shrek, Donkey, and Puss to do. Let's put in some stuff for Fiona and Lillian here..." The result is that there's a script, but no real story. And the dialog with some exceptions, is full of the clichés they so happily lampooned in earlier Shreks. The result comes across as a 3rd or 4th draft.
Andrew Adamson directed the previous two Shreks and has one of the writing credits here, but he did not direct it. I guess the franchise is so important now that it must be handled by two directors, neither of whom has Adamson's knack for timing. At various points in the evening, the pace was surprisingly ponderous.
It's not unpleasant, as movies go. It's just disappointing when such an average film continues a series of such good ones.
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Paul McCartney is a great songwriter. Let me just get that out of the way. But he isn't perfect. Take for example the song, "Live and Let Die", a song he wrote in the '70s for a Bond movie of the same name. The song is used briefly in Dreamworks' latest outing for everyone's favorite Scots ogre. In the song he actually wrote this line: "But if in this ever changing world in which we live in". "In which we live in"? Was he kidding? A great talent, but that is some lazy songwriting. I figure he was either exhausted, or under contract, as opposed to being inspired.
And that's the problem with this entire movie. The writing is simply not up to par. The story is loaded down with so many different elements that it is impossible to develop any of them. You can almost see the writers thinking, "Okay, now we've got a bunch of stuff for Shrek, Donkey, and Puss to do. Let's put in some stuff for Fiona and Lillian here..." The result is that there's a script, but no real story. And the dialog with some exceptions, is full of the clichés they so happily lampooned in earlier Shreks. The result comes across as a 3rd or 4th draft.
Andrew Adamson directed the previous two Shreks and has one of the writing credits here, but he did not direct it. I guess the franchise is so important now that it must be handled by two directors, neither of whom has Adamson's knack for timing. At various points in the evening, the pace was surprisingly ponderous.
It's not unpleasant, as movies go. It's just disappointing when such an average film continues a series of such good ones.