Shrek the "Bad things come in threes" edition

You know they say that sequels always suck. That’s what they say. How true it is, I don’t know, but I’d say it’s not a 100% sure-thing. Indiana Jones, anybody? Those were all winners. OK I know what you’re thinking, didn’t they just do a new sequel to that with ‘tard of an actor, Sh!t le-barf? Yeah OK you got me there, but I am going to conveniently ignore that such a film exists (also ignoring in the same vein: Star Wars Prequels).

Anyway, the build-up:

We’ve been home shopping since about early December. Wrote our first offer in the middle of that month, then another and another again, the latest in February. One that we wrote an offer on in January – our best candidate still – is a short sale which we’re still waiting on final approval from the seller’s bank, though hopefully we find out soon. Maybe today even. Still though, we’re looking around. We figured, why wait? What if this were to fall through and we ended up passing up some great homes in the meantime.

Recently a new property came up in town that was in our price range and looked like it might be a bargain. It was on a decent-sized lot, and was a nicely-sized house itself, so we called our realtor and had him set us up a showing. And as it turned, out the house was much better from afar. Good from far, far from good, as the playas say these days. Well, that I hear that the playas are saying these days, in ‘da hood.’ But the visit wasn’t a total waste. We found a movie!

The first room I walked into was a front bedroom with a closet. I opened the closet doors to get a peek and noticed that the door felt like it was being impeded. I peeked betwen the two doors, and sure enough, sandwiched in there was a DVD case. A copy of Shrek the Third.

Yeah I know, that was a long way to go to get to anything having to do with a sequel. Sorry.

Did I ever tell you about my love of Shrek? It was earned, let me tell you. I originally had no intention of ever watching the movie. It was an animated kids’ flick it seemed at the time, and I had no desire to see anything that even reminded me of a Disney adventure. I hate cute sh!t. If I saw a mouse with big ears wearing red shorts, I’d kill the little bastard. ESPECIALLY if it was annoying as hell and named Mickey. So yeah, Shrek seemed too kiddish & cute to like. But The Girl insisted – this was before she had anything to do with me and was just a friend of the family – and since I was home and had nothing better to do but eat dinner and suffer through a maddeningly-stupid-yet-annoyingly-cute movie, I let it happen.

Glad I did, too. It’s still one of my favorite movies. It’s just got that something.

Number 2, however, did not. I suffered through it at the theatre, and then I had to convince just about everyone that saw it that it did indeed suck. A second viewing was usually all it took. I find that once you’ve seen it, even if you say you loved it the first time, you just get worn out of the same worn-out jokes by about the 40-minute mark.

But, you say, what about the Third?

Well, I think that perhaps we should just continue bashing the second one. It’s more fair. The third installment sucked so bad, I refuse to accept in my mind that it was anything but a “straight to DVD” release. See above, commence ignoring, you could say. I mean, the jokes weren’t just bad, they were bad AND recycled from the first one, AND telegraphed like a... telegraph message?

The second installment sucked of its own merit; the third was just a quick money-grab by the producers. Luckily I stumbled upon it for free. It would seem to me that a better alternative to paying them to make you see it, would be to just have paid them to let you NOT have to see it.

Don’t. If you haven’t already, just… Don’t.