Paramount Home Video presents

Shrek the Third HD-DVD (2007)

"Our client cannot get into his proper emotional state without his jalapeño honey butter!"- Donkey (Eddie Murphy)

Stars: Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy, Justin Timberlake, Julie Andrews
Director: Chris Miller

MPAA Rating: PG for some crude humor, suggestive content and swashbuckling action
Run Time: 01h:32m:40s
Release Date: 2007-11-13
Genre: animation

Style Grade	Substance Grade	Image Transfer Grade	Audio Transfer Grade	Extras Grade
B+	B	A-	A+	B+

 

DVD Review

The DVD Review and Extras Review are by Jon Danziger.

You can't really fault DreamWorks for wanting to give us more of the same with this third incarnation of the Shrek franchise, and generally this is a pretty pleasing piece of work, especially for the little folks in whom an insatiable appetite for all things Shrek has been ginned up a couple of times before. And really, there's nothing wrong with Shrek the Third—it's reasonably entertaining, while not condescending to kids nor infuriating their caregivers. Any misgivings about the movie would be identical to those of any sequel, I suppose—the giddy sense of discovery that the first movie brought can't be recovered, and the kick of the DreamWorks animators clowning around and mixing it up with a hodgepodge of familiar fairy tale characters and expectations has now just become part of the formula. It's certainly a perfectly fine way to while away the time, even if it can't recapture the anarchic, upending spirit of the original.

Our friends are moving down the path of life, and a funny sort of domesticity has settled over the gang. Fiona has embraced her inner and outer ogre, and her parents, the King and Queen of Far, Far Away, have come to respect her choices, and have even developed a begrudging fondness for their son-in-law, Shrek. Curiously enough, though, the character who has glided most easily into adulthood is Donkey, the hyperactive burro given voice by Eddie Murphy. My biggest problem with the film, in fact, is that there's not enough Donkey—in a Shrek movie, I don't think you can ever have enough Donkey—and you almost get the sense that both the writers and Murphy and the other voice-over actors might be phoning it in a little bit. There are a number of reaction shots of Donkey, in fact, in which we've been conditioned to expect a kicker of a joke, and get little more than "Oh!" or "look out!" Antonio Banderas as Puss has even less to do; and only marginally closer to the center of the action is Cameron Diaz as Fiona, though a sequence with her and a sorority of self-empowering princesses is one of the best things here. (Loopily enough, Cinderella's wicked stepsisters are given voice by Larry King and Regis Philbin.)

But back to our story: as Princess Fiona's father lies dying, he needs an heir; and things are still sufficiently patriarchal that neither his wife nor his daughter is considered appropriate monarchical material. Shrek wants to get back to the swamp and out of the palace, so a new king must be found—and the only candidate is a geeky kid at Worcestershire High called Artie. So yes, we get the Camelot story filtered through the Shrek prism, with Arthur as a bit of a dork (even if voiced by Justin Timberlake), Lancelot the swollen-headed captain of the jousting team, Guinevere as the hipper-than-thou girl with a crush on Lance, and Merlin as a daffy retired high school teacher. It's amusing, but not riotously hilarious—there's more fun to be had with other fairy tale favorites, like a dissembling Pinocchio, a Teutonic set of three little pigs, and a snarky little Gingerbread Man.

Mike Myers as Shrek seems to be having the best time, and there are plenty of odd little ideas in here, like extended dream sequences for animated characters; Shrek must also joust with the evil Prince Charming, who attempts to round up all the fairy tale bad folk (Captain Hook, the Wicked Witch of the West, Rumpelstiltskin, and so on), though we know that he's way too into musical theater to triumph in a story like this. (Rupert Everett is a pip, even if he's not as prominent here as we was in the second outing; his Charming reduced to performing in dinner theater gives an almost tragic dimension to his epic self-delusion.) A concluding sequence, in which the stork finally does pay a visit to the Shrek household, suggests that we're not done with the franchise yet, though my vote would be for a prequel along the lines of "Donkey: The Early Years."

Rating for Style: B+
Rating for Substance: B

 

Image Transfer

	One
Aspect Ratio	1.85:1 - Widescreen
Original Aspect Ratio	yes
Anamorphic	yes

Image Transfer Review: As one would expect, the rendition of the computer graphics in high def is eye-popping, with vivid textures and plenty of detail throughout. What's particularly good is the shadow definition in the scenes in the palace. The animation in the feature seems just a shade softer than in the extras, which might signal application of filtering or digital noise reduction, which would be worse than useless on a computer-generated feature. There are occasional glimpses of edge enhancement visible on high contrast items, but on the whole it's an excellent rendition that will dissatisfy only the very pickiest of viewers.

Image Transfer Grade: A-
 

Audio Transfer

	Language	Remote Access
Dolby Digital +	English, French, Spanish	yes

Audio Transfer Review: The DD+ tracks offer splendid presence and directionality, with good range. The dynamic range is also highly effective. The foley effects come across with immediacy that's often startling. The music score offers fine definition to the instrumentation, which can not only be picked out readily, but placed in the orchestra with a bit of effort. The vocal characterizations are as if they're right in your living room, and oh, that foghorn. Not even the pickiest will be disappointed by the audio. And for Spanish speakers, there's the Spanish track that went missing from the standard disc.

Audio Transfer Grade: A+ 

Disc Extras

Animated menu with music
Scene Access with 18 cues and remote access
Subtitles/Captions in English, French, Spanish
2 Other Trailer(s) featuring Bee Movie, Kung Fu Panda
4 Deleted Scenes
5 Featurette(s)
Storyboard
Packaging: Elite
Picture Disc
1 Disc
1-Sided disc(s)
Layers: dual

Extra Extras:

1. Games, jukebox and other fun stuff
2. Web-enabled features, including trivia track and notes about the characters

Extras Review: All of the extras are presented in HD, and there are a few exclusive extras on the HD DVD version. Prominent among them is "The Animators' Corner," which provides a picture-in-picture comparison to the storyboards, which will be of interest to those intrigued by the animation process. There are also icons to allow you to insert the "lost scene" pitches in their appropriate places. There's also an option to make the menu themed for one of the characters Shrek, Donkey, Fiona, Puss or Gingy, or you can return it to the original version.

There are also web-enabled features on the HD DVD. There's a trivia track that includes over 300 fun facts that will play along with the movie. "The World of Shrek" allows you to get additional information about over 20 of the characters when you press the "A" key, but it doesn't appear as if these features are both usable at once. On my first try on downloading these features I got a disc error, but the second time it worked fine. Even then, the download meter always says 0% until it's completed, which is a little perplexing but not a huge issue. A "Donkey's Digital Coloring Book" sounds interesting but at this point it's still "Coming Soon."

The rest of the extras are ported over from the standard DVD, as reviewed by Jon Danziger, though the DVD/ROM material is excluded for obvious reasons.

Under the menu heading DreamWorks Kids, you'll find Merlin's Magic Crystal Ball, the latest DVD incarnation of the old magic 8 ball; along with How to Be Green (3m:59s), eco-friendly ideas for kids from everybody's favorite ogre. And we can dance if we want to, we can leave your friends behind: Learn the Donkey Dance (1m:39s) is a riff on that legendary 80s band, Men Without Hats.

More interesting is Big Green Goofs (1m:56s), not for errors but for its look at the animation process, something dealt with a bit more substantially in Tech of Shrek (9m:54s), which interviews everybody at DreamWorks from Jeffrey Katzenberg on down, about the evolution of animation over the course of the Shrek movies. A package (18m:22s) of four "lost" scenes are less interesting as story, and worth watching mostly for its look into the world of pitching and storyboards, and the animating sense of friendly competition among the filmmakers.

You can also Meet the Cast (10m:39s), as Myers, Diaz, Banderas, Murphy and Timberlake are all interviewed; and get child-rearing tips from the likes of Donkey and Puss in Shrek's Guide to Parenthood. A DreamWorks Animation Video Jukebox features musical numbers from six other features—the ones likely to get the most play are the finales from the previous two movies in this series, with Murphy singing lead on I'm a Believer, and joined by Banderas on Livin' La Vida Loca. (Puss and Donkey, y'all.)

Extras Grade: B+
 

Final Comments

A sturdy if unspectacular entry in this durable franchise, with artful animation, old friends, and just enough good humor to pull us along for an hour and a half. The HD DVD transfer is spectacular, and there are some exclusive extras that are worth checking out.

Mark Zimmer 2007-11-27