Shrek the Third

What can I say? The Guardian was disappointed, and I seem forever destined to agree with that bastion of well-meaning, misspelled middle-class guilt.

It didn't help, of course, that I found myself back in Camden Odeon on Saturday, along with about half the under-12 population of Camden, while the more discerning viewer was back at the Curzon Soho patiently waiting for the handwritten ticket so they could stroke their goti through a subtitled film about the life of Edith Piaf.

Shrek the Third is along similar lines as Shreks the First and Second (whose names escape me in my current imbalanced state). That is to say, by this point it's fairly predictable, and all the best possible targets for fairytale satirising have been used up. Oh, and Antonio Banderas isn't in it much this time, which is in my opinion always a bad move. What you end up with then is quite a pleasant way to spend a wet Saturday afternoon, but at £9 a go (did I ever mention I hated Camden Odeon? Oh, yes, so I did) that's not really enough. Mrs Shrek - the princess-ogre inexplicably called Fiona - is pregnant, but Shrek isn't confident about becoming a father. This sounds rather too much like a roantic comedy starring Jennifer Aniston rather than a satirical cartoon featuring the likes of John Cleese (albeit for about 5 minutes as a dying frog. Yeah. He croaked. Get it? We laughed for seconds.) There's a few brief minutes of hilarity when Eric Idle features as a wizard who's given up wizarding for self-help and psychotherapy, but other than that the only thing I found amusing was Captain Hook's accent, and I don't think it was meant to. (Was Captain Hook Irish? Was Ian McShane's voiceover supposed to suggest he was? It's impossible to tell.)

If you haven't seen it yet, then unless you're under 12 or have kids under 12, allow me to suggest the following as alternatives:

"Shut Up And Sing" - about the predictable, if a little scary, reaction to the revelation that the Dixie Chicks had brains and consciences.
"The War on Democracy" - another of those films that makes you suspect you're being preached at. You probably don't want to watch these two together, though this has the advantage of not being on at the Camden Odeon.
"Das Leben Der Anderen"- it's still on and it's simply the greatest film this year.

As for the subtitled film about Edith Piaf, I haven't seen it yet, though I'd like to. Is it any good?