King Shrek, Hollywood's favorite ogre, is likely summer smash
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — Time to catch up with your ogre friend Shrek, his greenish bride, Fiona, and their two men Friday, the yammering Donkey and the overreaching Puss in Boots.
The filmmakers behind "Shrek the Third" offered a sneak peek at their PDI-DreamWorks animation complex near San Francisco. From the 20 minutes they showed, the film looks likely to meet expectations as one of summer's hottest tickets.
Key voice stars Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz and Antonio Banderas return, with Justin Timberlake headlining the newcomers as geeky teenager Artie.
"You feel you've got a lot to live up to, man," Timberlake said about being the new kid on the block in the Shrek world. "When you come into 'Shrek,' you definitely feel you have a lot to prove."
The gang is joined by a gargantuan cast as the filmmakers take advantage of computer animation to load up on supporting players, among them Merlin, Captain Hook, witches, and four of the fairy-tale world's fairest princesses.
Here's a rundown of the players and their exploits for the film that hits theaters May 18:
Just when newlyweds Shrek and Fiona thought they could head home to peace and quiet in the swamp, Fiona's dad, the frog King Harold, croaks.On his deathbed, he asks son-in-law Shrek to take over the throne of Far Far Away, a job the ogre dreads. Shrek's only option: track down Fiona's distant cousin Artie and groom him to become king.So Shrek and sidekicks Donkey and Puss sail away to find Artie, the future King Arthur. Just as they leave, Fiona drops another bomb on her anti-social, kid-hating husband: There's a little ogre on the way.Fiona stays behind at the palace, where Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Rapunzel throw her a baby shower.Palace life is interrupted by an invasion of fairy-tale villains, led by Prince Charming, whose happy-ever-after was dashed by Shrek in the first two films. The prince takes over the realm, forcing Fiona to teach her posse of pampered princesses to stand up for themselves."A big part of this film is just the theme of taking responsibility, be it fatherhood or kingship or whatever," said Nick Walker, head of layout on the animation team.
Who's backThe whole gang returns, led by the key foursome of Shrek (Myers), Donkey (Murphy), Fiona (Diaz) and Puss in Boots (Banderas).Also back: Fiona's mom, Queen Lillian (Julie Andrews, who in a dizzy moment hums "My Favorite Things," a tune she sang in "The Sound of Music"); King Harold (John Cleese); villainous Prince Charming (Rupert Everett); and ugly stepsister Doris (Larry King).
The main new face is Arthur Pendragon, or Artie (Timberlake), a bumbling teen who's first seen getting his butt kicked by jock Lancelot in a jousting match at school.When Shrek, Donkey and Puss arrive with the news that Artie's in line to become a king, it swells his head after a lifetime spent a rung lower on the social scale than the school dorks who play a medieval variation of Dungeons and Dragons.Timberlake, whose poster appears as a gag on Fiona's bedroom wall in "Shrek 2," recently split in real life from Diaz, but it was not their personal relationship that led to the "Shrek the Third" gig. The filmmakers rang him up after catching Timberlake on "Saturday Night Live.""We had seen him on 'SNL' and were blown away by how funny he was," said "Shrek the Third" producer Aron Warner.Shrek, Donkey and Puss also run across magician Merlin (Eric Idle), who used to be a teacher at Artie's school until he had a nervous breakdown.Regis Philbin joins the voice cast as Mabel, another ugly stepsister, while Captain Hook, seen briefly singing a Tom Waits song in "Shrek 2," advances to a speaking role, with vocals by Ian McShane.
With three more years of refinements to computer animation, what isn't better about "Shrek the Third"?Greater variation in hair styles, body types, facial features and clothing allowed the team to bring in far more characters and present huge crowd scenes."In the past, we had issues where our hero characters looked great because we spent so much time on them, but the generic characters, the secondaries, didn't look quite so good, to the point where on 'Shrek 1' we tried to stay away from them," said visual-effects supervisor Philippe Gluckman. "Now they all look great."The advances are a bit daunting to the actors, who jokingly wonder if they could be replaced in live-action films by computer simulations."It makes me shake in my pants," Banderas said. "Someday, they may not need actors anymore. That's why I'm going to Broadway, man."
