10 Movies Everyone Skips In A Franchise
8. Shrek the Third
The first two Shrek movies are basically perfect - the first being a delirious fairy-tale parody, the second touting one of the strongest gag-per-minute rates in comedy history.
Expectations were sky-high, then, for Shrek the Third, which ended up falling way short of the mark, enough that its script even lets off a strong whiff of "direct-to-video animated sequel," even though it was theatrically released and grossed more than $800 million worldwide.
The third Shrek lacks the satirical spark of its predecessors and is far too eager to retread their storytelling while bringing frustratingly little fresh to the table. Hell, even the vocal performances from the central cast sound tired and over-it compared to the first two movies.
The fourth film, Shrek Forever After, may not get anywhere close to the quality of the untouchable first two, but it at least has a fun villain in Rumpelstiltskin (Walt Dohrn) and feels like it was made because someone actually had the kernel of an interesting idea.
Shrek the Third, though, can largely be ignored because it was clearly only made after Shrek 2 got within a whisker of grossing $1 billion globally.