Shark Tale Movie Review:


Where has all the heart and humor gone?

In the latest computer-animated extravaganza from DreamWorks Pictures, Will Smith lends his voice to a fish named Oscar, who happens to be a fast-talking fish who dreams of bigger and brighter things. When Oscar’s mouth gets him into trouble and he ends up being sent up river by the “shark-mob”, he starts to learn his lesson until fate intervenes.

Oscar watches as an anchor from the surface above crashes down killing one of the “shark” mobsters. Then the whole reef starts to celebrate dubbing Oscar a “shark killer”. Oscar doesn’t allow his fellow fish to think anything more than that and it eventually builds him a fortune.

For Oscar to maintain his mirage of fame, he must befriend a rather reluctant shark named Lenny. Together Oscar and Lenny maintain Oscar’s new infamy but it will eventually come at a price.

As I sat back and watched all the beautiful colors of the gorgeous animation and tried to recognize some celebrity voices, I couldn’t help but notice that there was no soul in this animated piece. The film relied heavily on the casting of the voices, goofy advertisements with fishy names, pop culture references and every mobster pun or joke you can think of. It just felt, pardon the pun, shallow.

I am not sure if anyone out there will remember this reference but in a lot of ways the film reminded a lot of the short-lived 1992 TV series, “Fish Police”. The series followed a gritty detective named Gil (voiced by the late John Ritter) who in the fourth episode of the series investigates a fishy version of the mob. “Shark Tale” felt like they took the whole concept and feel of “Fish Police” injected it full of “pop-culture” LSD, CGI animation and force fed it “Godfather” tuna. Because I remembered this little misunderstood TV series kind of made me dislike the film more than I probably should have.

I liked a lot of the film’s casting but the jokes, the script and the rudimentary situations really made for a waste of all the talent involved. Are kids going to really know that some of the stars of the “Sopranos” or the infamous “Godfather” films did some of the fish voices? Furthermore are they recognizable? That was another thing that really bugged me that about 80% of the all-star cast are unrecognizable as the voices they provide. They could have been anybody.

To top it all off, did we really need a Christina Aguilera fish?

(2 out of 5)

So Says the Soothsayer.

Dean Kish

If you think this looks like a Finding Nemo knock-off, don't worry: It's simply a silly bit of undersea fluff, much more like Shrek in that sense, jammed to the gills with pop culture references and fishy puns. Thoroughly entertaining, but no subtext whatsoever.

Oscar (Smith) is in trouble with a loan shark--actually a loan puffer fish--named Sykes (Scorsese). Then when he's the only fish present when a shark is accidentally killed, he becomes Oscar the Shark Slayer, and with Sykes as his agent is propelled to stardom in his coral-reef city. This leaves his love-struck coworker (Zellweger) worrying that she'll lose out to a gold-digging bombshell (Jolie). But the dead shark was the son of mafioso Don Lino (De Niro), whose other son (Black) isn't living up to expectations. Now Lino wants revenge.

The animation is extremely lively, constantly moving to the rhythms of the underwater urban landscape. And the fish themselves are cleverly drawn to resemble the actors who give them voices--although the anthropomorphism is out of control as the fish adopt a bit too much human physicality. Still, the strong vocal cast make the characters spring to life, full of attitude and hilariously bouncing off each other (Scorsese is especially wonderful). The witty dialog and sight gags keep us paying close attention, and ensure that adults won't be bored while the colourful action keeps the kids enthralled.

But it's all extremely simplistic; there are mild attempts at emotion and moral lessons about loyalty and integrity, but those things are just part of the formula really. The film is just lively fun, densely jammed with comedy titbits that keep us chuckling and puns that keep us groaning. Racial stereotypes are dangerously close to the surface but just avoid being offensive--the sharks are a death-obsessed Italian-Jewish mob, Sykes' henchmen (Marley and Doug) are goofy Rasta jellyfish. But it's so innocuous that virtually no one could ever get angry about it. In fact, the whole film could've used sharper teeth, frankly.

Rich Cline

Oscar (Smith) is a fish with big dreams of making it to the top of the reef. In reality he worked at the local Whale Wash and was just a small fry in a very big ocean. When his get rich schemes get him in 5000 clams worth of debt with his boss Sykes (Scorsese), Oscar is taken out into the ocean to be fed to the sharks. Lenny (Black) is a shark that lacks the killer instinct, much to the regret of his father Don Lino (De Niro), the leader of the local Shark Mafia. But when he sends Lenny out to the ocean to make his first kill with his brother, Frankie is accidentally killed while trying to eat his victim, who just happens to be Oscar. Sykes’s two henchmen witness the event on their way back to the reef and instantly hail Oscar as a hero and a shark slayer. Seeing instant fame and fortune, Oscar doesn’t disagree with them and starts living the life, that is until Don Lino finds out who killed his son.

After the huge success of Shrek and its sequel, DreamWorks hope to start another franchise with Shark Tale but does this latest animated spectacular have the bite to cause another big splash at the box office?

The simple answer is no. Shark Tale just doesn’t have the magical quality that you associate with the big Green Ogre and his friends, making it stinks of a wasted opportunity. The main problem is the characters. None of them are realised to their full potential and are merely fish caricatures of the movie stars that are providing their voices. Only Jack Black, as reluctant shark Lenny, gives a vocal performance that doesn’t actually sound like his own, everyday voice. This rest are just themselves, in fish form, acting as you’d expect them to act.

Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese parody some of their greatest collaborations but the jokes will fly over the head of the target audience (the kids) and the adults will just groan at two greats of cinema making a mockery of some of their best work. Will Smith is basically the Fresh Prince of the Reef but twice as annoying as his small screen creation ever was. Renée Zellweger equates herself better as Angie, as does Angelina Jolie as the gold-digger Lola. The stars of the show are Doug E. Doug and Ziggy Marley as Rastafarian jellyfish Bernie and Ernie. They provide much of the comic relief and are probably the most realised characters in the movie.

The story isn’t the most complex either. This is a Mafia movie that never shows Don Lino and his hoods doing anything to show why they have their reputation. You couldn’t really show the Sharks eating any of the main characters, but the threat should have been there. Also the screenwriters missed the opportunity of parodying the usual gangster activities of racketeering, collecting protection money and even putting a contract on someone.

While the characters may not be the best creations, the animated undersea world they inhabit is superb. This may not have the realism of Finding Nemo but the reef is a stylised version of New York, with its skyscrapers and recreation of Times Square. The attention to detail is first rate and Shark Tale showcases the advancing technological level of the computer graphics used to produce these animated features.

With a very slight story and characters that don’t really stick in the memory, Shark Tale isn’t the best of the big budget animated features to hit the silver screen. While there is still much to enjoy here, you can’t help but think this is a wasted opportunity. Shark Tale just doesn’t have the bite to become an animated classic.

Star Rating = * * * (For Kids) * * (For everyone else)

Jamie Kelwick

 

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