The Short List of Things to Do

The ugly green guy (voiced by Mike Myers) and his retinue are back for Take 3 of DreamWorks' fractured fairy tale, this one directed by Chris Miller. Here, the happily married Shrek, shrinking from the prospect of becoming king, goes searching for a proper heir and instead finds the feckless Artie (Justin Timberlake). A laugh-packed opening gives way to meandering plot lines and lots of moralizing, with our hero sounding as dewily p.c. as an Ogre Winfrey. It's a goofy request, but maybe filmmakers should have a better reason to do a threequel than that its predecessors earned billions. Or could it be that the buoyancy of pastiche comedy is just harder to sustain the third time around?

—Richard Corliss