Shark Tale

Had "Shark Tale" had even an iota of the wit and charm that seems to have little trouble finding its way into Pixar's creations, the movie might have been more enjoyable. At the least the filmmakers could have snuck in some funny social commentary through the veil of animation.

What we have instead is an urban, glib, lifeless product that is market-tested and ready for consumption. An empty ghetto-fabulous morality tale loaded with pop culture references and plenty of bling-bling but no heart.

Under the ocean, Oscar (voice of Will Smith) is a tongue-scrubber at a "whale-wash" and part-time hustler. He wishes for a better life, hoping to swim his way to the top of the fish social ladder, though his coworker Angie (voice of Renee Zellweger) thinks he should be happy with who he is, and tries to subtly drop hints that she's quite taken with him.

Meanwhile, great white shark and local crime boss Don Lino (voice of Robert De Niro) is planning to turn his family business over to his two sons, Frankie and Lenny. But Lenny (voice of Jack Black) is harboring some serious issues concerning eating other fish, and the godfather is worried his weak son with reflect poorly on him.

Oscar has problems. In debt to his boss Sykes (voice of Martin Scorsese), he soon ends up in hot water. However, fate runs him smack into Frankie and Lenny. During the scuffle, an anchor accidentally kills Frankie and Oscar is mistakenly given credit for the kill. Now a media celebrity for being a "shark slayer," Oscar rides his status all the way to the top, with Sykes managing his interests and the sharks fuming that their top spot in the food chain is quickly losing its power.

Situations soon escalate and Oscar and Lenny reach an agreement: if they fake a battle and Oscar emerges triumphant, he can keep his credibility as a shark slayer and Lenny can start a new life.

"Shark Tale" openly references "The Godfather" and "Jaws" at every opportunity, which in and of itself isn't too bad except that so little is made of the main plot itself that the whole move feels like a patchwork of other, better movies, just with a meaningless hip-hop attitude. The special effects are up to par but there's nothing really special about them. The audience needs a story and characters, not just choreographed dance sequences and goofy product placements.

All this might have been negligible had the movie actually been funny. This, sadly, is not the case. I only recorded one good laugh during the screening I attended, and that involved a shark voiced by Peter Falk whose flatulence had the expected effect on a henchmen. When a fart joke is the best you have to offer, then you've got serious problems.

The story also steals shamelessly from the 1942 Disney cartoon "The Reluctant Dragon," which featured a fixed battle between a loudmouth braggart knight and a pacifist dragon to keep the locals off both their backs. That story was at least short and cute, neither of which can be said about this debacle.

Along with the plot, voice acting is pretty lifeless as well. Smith gets to indulge his ego, playing his own persona on screen once again, this time in fish form. De Niro and Scorsese seem to be having fun spoofing their own tough guy roles, but that's about it from them. The biggest surprise is how much of a laid-back performance Black gives. His trademark manic desperation is nowhere to be seen, playing instead a shockingly normal character. Had he cut loose, the scenes he's in might have been more enjoyable. What's stranger is his hiding of his vegetarian leanings from his dad is handled like an allegory for a gay person coming out to his parents.

When is Hollywood going to realize it doesn't matter how many famous actors you get to do voices for your characters; if the story sucks, then no amount of acting talent is going to save it? There are three Academy Award winners in this cast, just don't use that as a benchmark for excellence.

This all amounts to another animated project from DreamWorks high on energy and low on inspiration. After "Spirit: Stallion of the Cimmarron," "Road to El Dorado" and "Sinbad" all tanked, it's clear that the "Shrek" series is the only good thing the studio has going for it right now.

Of course, there's no escaping comparison to that other computer animated fish movie, either, and that's when this film looks most wanting. Where Pixar's "Finding Nemo" swam the full depths of the ocean, "Shark Tale" seems content to just tread water in the wading pool.

4 out of 10 stars. Pretty to look at, but any movie that tries to push this much "coolness" down your throat is just asking to be despised.

The star power in this movie really made the difference...u can see really see Robert De Niro in the way the shark moves and talks. Martin Scorcese as Skyes is pretty cool...and Will Smith isn't too bad either. The only part that I would be critical about is that the story isn't very original.At times its even predictable. But all in all the movie is funny...Jack black as Lenny is great. Those who liked Finding Nemo would probably like this movie too..(Although it isn't as good as Finding Nemo) Worth a watch...for kids as well as for adults.Angelie Jolie was a great choice to play the part of Lola.The animation in this film is brilliant...buts thats something v have come to expect of animated films..isn't it!!

After seeing the opening today I have to admit...Shark's Tale was one of the corniest movie I've seen in my life...CORNY to the bone. The plot was awesome, and I had laughs, but the writers really tried too hard to make this movie too funny, and they're going to lose international credibility for it...a whole lot.

Let me give you a Jamaican perspective. I'm not taking anything from Ziggy Marley (Ernie) & Doug E. Doug (Bernie); they both couldn't have done the 'Jellyfish Rastas Duo' roles better. But seriously now, both roles were controversially laced with cuss words taken from the Jamaican dialect (thankfully that most Americans don't understand). And so, I felt quite embarrassed listening to the context in how it was done. I'm proud of my Jamaican culture and dialect and that many people would love to learn & experience it. But the writers just can't incorporate cuss words into a kid's movie like that.

It might be funny to some, but it also sends a negative message to the younger audience about different cultures. I wouldn't be surprised if, people walk out on this one when this comes out in the Caribbean.

Shark Tale is doubtlessly going to be endlessly compared to Pixar's "Finding Nemo". It is unfortunate that Shark Tale comes out the lesser of the two movies, but truly comparing the two is generally a fruitless exercise.

Opening with a detailed dive into the city of the fish Shark Tale presents a world of sight gags and moderate puns. From the star fish walk of fame through the dolphin police, through to the shots of "the top of the reef", the sequence is a bustling hive of activity. At this point I would make one valid comparison with Nemo - the graphics. Shark Tale fails to really seem as if anything is happening underwater. Yes, there are fish in the shot and yes everything intellectually should be under the sea, but where Nemo oozed and flowed in a very fluid vista Shark Tale shows colour and spectacle, but without that organic ocean feeling. This is not to say Shark Tale's graphic work is bad, simply that it does not feel waterborne.

With that aside, the cartoon images in Shark Tale are well presented, with the anthropomorphic fish taking on the facial characteristics of their voice actors. Never has (or will) a fish ever look more like Wil Smith , or acted like him. This is Wil Smith in full Fresh Prince wise-cracking mode made piscine in Oscar. Renee Zellwegger is instantly recognisable in her fish counterpart Angie, as is the vampy Angela Jolie (Lola).

The story itself revolves around Oscar's passage from an unhappy, dreaming, nobody to a famous, unhappy, somebody to a happy nobody. It's a generic, oft-repeated tale, albeit set in a world full of mafioso sharks, vengeful shrimp, and whales with poor personal hygiene.

As such, the story itself is both predictable and can be safely ignored. You can feel each step of the way long before it hits the screen. It has no surprises, and so the movie resorts to banter and set pieces to amuse.

It doesn't often succeed with these. Of the set pieces the shark funeral is by far the best part of the movie. It is hilarious and somehow moving at the same time. Lenny (Jack Black) and Don Lino (Robert De Niro) make an amusing scene in a restaurant debating with the food. The remainder, including Oscar's big fight scene, are generally uninvolving unless you have an interest in keeping an ear and eye out for the multitude of pop references - many of which are simply thrown in for no reason other than that somebody thought they should be there. Oscar's non sequiturs at the end of the great shark fight are particularly pointless and unfunny.

Some in jokes and references do work - having Ziggy Marley solemnly tell Oscar (Smith) that he's singing reggae wrong is clever. Some gags also work - the pizza ordering Octopus is a gem.

But despite playing heavily on racial stereotypes the movie as a whole feels rather bland - as if it was designed by marketers and a committee rather than by people who had a funny tale they wanted to tell.

The actors supplying the voices vary in effectiveness. Wil Smith is effectively Wil Smith, love it or hate it. Zellwegger gives a decent, if shallow, performance as the love interest, and Jolie's Lola is barely on screen long enough for her to make an impact. De Niro makes the movie as Don Lino, shark godfather, and without his presence it would be fair to say that the movie would simply be too weak to sustain interest.

The music is very MTV, and the end song sequence is atrocious - though kids will probably love it, parents should bring ear plugs for the time when Oscar releases "Missy and Christina" until you leave the cinema.

Shark Tale offers an amusing hour and a half for the children but a rather predictable and only occasionally amusing time for adults. It lacks the magic, sparkle, and dare I say bite, that was so desperately needed.

Six starfish out of a possible 10.

Round two of the Pixar/Dreamworks choose-a-theme competition scores once again for Pixar.

Remember when a few years ago there were two animated ant movies to choose from? I think they even came at the same time in the theaters in my country. One was AntZ, the other was A Bug's Life. The first one was rumoured to be more suited to adults, the other a kiddie movie. While that statement had some merit, at the end it turned out that A Bug's Life was a far better movie entertainment-wise, despite cuter characters and simpler story and all that kiddie-like appearance. AntZ were just plain dull.

Pixar seems to like choosing a simple story, one that a kid can understand, and than building upon it creating a wonderful movie for all ages. Dreamworks builds his scripts on pop-culture references and more adult themes, and while it works sometimes (Shrek was fantastic), at other times it just falls flat.

Some say it's unfair to compare Finding Nemo and Shark Tale, them being totally different movies with the only matching characteristic being antropomorphic fish, but it seems that the comparison is inevitable. It's the ants thing all over again. Finding Nemo was simply wonderful, great movie with a perfect sense of humour and memorable characters. Sure, they were cute and cuddly, but they had a soul.

Shark Tale, again, tries to appeal to the adults, but this time the results are even worse. The characters are not so important as the cast is, even so much that we are being sledgehammered on the head in who's playing who. A word to the wise - I don't care how big the names doing the voicework are, I want to immerse in the movie's story. When I saw Shrek, I didn't see Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy there, I saw Shrek and Donkey. Here I see De Niro, Smith, Scorsese and so on. At one point I even caught myself wondering why the other fish keep calling Will Smith "Oscar".

As for the story, it kind of drags along. I couldn't really sympathize with the lead character - he is at the same time stupid and so full of himself that I didn't care about his motivations or the messes he got himself into. Also, somehow the story didn't map so well in the underwater world. What is the Shark mafia exactly ? Are they supposed to be predators or criminals? Basically the mafia thing is here only to serve as a playground for mob-movie references, but it serves no purpose story-wise. Also, the entire world seems very unbelievable. Flahing electrical neon signs? Fire hydrants? It actually backfires, since instead of getting a kick out of fishes living like humans, mostly you feel like you're watching an alien movie, with the aliens resembling our world's fishes in some ways.

All in all, I did enjoy the movie, but only in the sense that I didn't feel cheated out of my money. A couple of the jokes worked, some pop-culture references were funny, the movie was not too boring. But when I remember that after Nemo or Incredibles I was smiling even a few hours after the movie, then I see that Shark Tale ain't what it possibly could be. It's just a popcorn movie, easily forgettable. And rightfully so.