Shrek 3, Ocean's Thirteen

The triumphant return of That Guy Named David!

Shrek the Third (C)

My nieces and nephew were in town over the weekend, so we went kid-friendly with the video rental and got the most-recent addition to the Shrek family. In short, the movie was decent but nothing to celebrate. Maybe I am just "Shreked-out," but I just did not find myself enjoying this movie. I think the writers/directors attempted to re-hash many of the same themes and dialogue that made the first two successful. However, they failed to add any new, interesting characters, and the story was not creative enough to keep my attention (or the attention of the kid-folk) throughout the movie. They should have stopped at 2, instead of trying to complete the trilogy.

Ocean's Thirteen (C+)

Speaking of bad attempts at completing a trilogy, we also rented Ocean's Thirteen over the past weekend. In Thirteen, the writers had the unique idea to bring together a bunch of mega-moviestars, put them in Las Vegas, have them put together and execute a complicated burglary of a major casino, all the while avoiding (a) being killed and/or (b) ending up in jail. Sounds like winner, huh? Well, it was... for Ocean's Eleven made in 1960 and remade in 2001. Not so much for the one re-remade in 2007. Seriously, can someone please think up an original idea in Hollywood these days? Had the weather been half-decent, I would have been kicking myself for wasting 2 hours on a Sunday watching this dud.