Their search takes the trio to a high school complete with school mascots, cheerleaders, awkward nerds, a jousting team and Artie, who is belongs to no group and is shunned by everyone. So imagine the young Pendragon's shock when Shrek tells him he is going to be king. Unfortunately, on the way back, Arthur gets cold feet and the ship wrecks and they are left stranded in the middle of nowhere. While exploring the island, they stumble upon Merlin, Artie's old magic teacher who's had to take a sabbatical because of a nervous breakdown.
Meanwhile, back in Far Far Away, Prince Charming has rallied the villains from all of the fairy tales together in an effort to take over the kingdom and find their happily ever after. The villains succeed in not only taking over the kingdom, but also putting Fiona and her friends (Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel and Fiona's mother, Queen Lillian) in jail.
This DVD comes with quite a few special features like "Shrek's Guide to Parenthood" where you get to hear various characters' parenting advice for Shrek and Fiona. The "Lost Scenes" feature shows various parts of the movie that didn't make it to the animator's desk, but we get to see the creators going through the storyboards. These movies have also typically held a special feature showing the various animation mistakes that occurred while working on the movie. These are things like body parts being exaggerated or crazy hair, and this feature is called "Big Green Goofs."
Probably one of the most interesting featurettes on Shrek the Third is "Tech of Shrek" where you get to learn about how the technology has changed over the years since the first Shrek movie. They discuss how much easier it is to do things like clothing, hair and visual effects (like Merlin's magic). Quite frankly, as interesting as this feature was, at least from a technological standpoint, it mostly felt like an HP/AMD ad since most of the time, those being interviewed were harping about how great their computers are.
Shrek the Third is a fun movie and definitely rounds out anyone's collection who has the first two movies. If you haven't seen the second one, then you will probably be a little lost when this movie starts off since it is more of a continuation of the second film (as far as cast, feel and settings). So if you haven't seen the second movie, definitely watch it first.
