User reviews

As said in my review for 2016's 'Quackerz', love animation (films like 'Beauty and the Beast', 'Pinocchio', 'The Lion King', 'Bambi', 'Sleeping Beauty', 'Snow White', 'Aladdin', 'The Little Mermaid, the 'Toy Story' trilogy, 'Inside Out' 'The Secret of NIMH' 'Watership Down', 'The Prince of Egypt', 'The Iron Giant' and many of Studio Ghibli films are among my favourites), always have, always will.

'SeeFood' is a long way from being down there as among the worst animated films ever but it is a mess of a film, that has some pleasing (if not perfect) visuals and sporadic appeal and amusement but is let down massively by major tonal and target audience issues and a dreadfully executed story that doesn't work on any level. What an unfortunate waste of a great setting.

There are good things with 'SeeFood'. A good deal of the animation is beautiful, full of vivid and bright colours and backgrounds and landscapes that are inventively and vibrantly done and makes one really immersed and warmly invited. The opening is a good example.

The heroes are appealing enough and there are a few amusing moments particularly with the chickens (delightful characters and steal the show).

However, the stiff character designs are far less convincing as are some abruptly ending transitions. The music has an unintentional eerie creepiness that really does not fit, even the images are darker. The voice actors at least fit their characters but there's not much energy or soul here, nobody sounds like they're living their roles and are merely reading them.

Dialogue often sounds awkward and the pace is erratic, mostly it's pretty pedestrian but the abrupt nature of the scene endings makes some of the pace jumpy too.

Where 'SeeFood' really falls down heavily on is the story, the execution of which is a complete disaster and one of the messiest of any animated film personally seen. It never knows what tone it wants to be, having some comic and light-hearted, frothy moments (where things are much more successful and actually has heart) and then switches quickly to a darker tone that constantly jars and done in a way that are unpleasant and disturbing. The abusive father and the sea creatures leave a bad taste in the mouth and feels completely at odds, especially the former.

Objected too to how bullying is treated as humour, for those bullied and emotionally scarred by it that's offensive and the wrong message to give out at how wrong it is and what it does to people. Even though familiar, the basic story on paper was a decent one and if done right could have really resonated emotionally and thrilled. Sadly this was wasted by a continually disconnected structure, a complete lack of logic and coherence, bizarre tonal shifts and being constantly interrupted by thinly sketched character that vary in relevance and increasingly irrelevant situations left incomplete in some cases. The well intended environmental message is also lost amidst the increasing murkiness and feels almost random.

In summation, a few good things (like the animation and the sporadic amusing moment) are not enough to save a disastrously executed story that swaps a light-touch, humour and emotional resonance for a disturbingly dark tone in abrupt shifts, choppy erratic pacing and cohesion-lacking murkiness. 3/10 Bethany Cox

Julius and Pup are playing on the sea floor when two young human divers grab the shark eggs. Pup tries and fails to stop them. He becomes depressed over his failure. Julius tries to catch chicken on the beach and is almost stranded. Later, he's caught by fishermen looking for shark fins and barely escapes. Pup tries to recruit turtle Murtle and octopus Octo on a mission to rescue the shark eggs.

This Malaysian animated film tries to jump up to the major leagues. The difference between this and a movie like Finding Nemo is more than the technical animation. The animation is slightly inferior but one can live with that. It's the muddled story that is the most problematic. Hollywood has a near century of experience telling stories on the big screen in less than two hours. That's what is missing in this movie. If Pup's journey is the key, then the other characters should serve him in the story. The story becomes muddled and it loses the rooting interesting of the audience. As a technical exercise, this holds a little bit of promise if the aim is a lot lower. It does need a good story teller to clean this up.

Even though I did enjoy it Parents need to know that despite some bright, colorful animation, and a few appealing heroes, Sea Level is filled with dark images, eerie music, bullying used as humor, scarily-mutated sea creatures, an abusive human father, and characters constantly in fear for their lives. Viewers, especially young ones, will find the film's often disconnected structure and abrupt scene endings hard to follow. If Sea Level is meant as a humorous, cautionary tale about protecting the planet and its oceans, that message is as random and murky as the story itself and the few humorous sequences don't qualify it as watchable. Recommend for older children James Welch Henderson, Arkansas 1/4/2020

First off this movie in general if awful. Plot is filled with holes and unnecessary scenes. We found this on Pluto TV and figured it would be a cute movie to pass the time,on a rainy day. We turned it off about 40 minutes in. There are many disturbing and borderline gory scenes involving killing, child abuse, and hostages. Not at all a family feature.

I have just registered with IMDb because I felt I really needed to add my comments about this movie. It is so disjointed and just doesn't work. My daughter picked it up at Blockbuster but it was so hard going. It was very slow and random scenes kept coming into it with no real explanation. I kept expecting it to pick up but it never really did. The voices are OK and the animation is good, just the story line and switching between scenes that doesn't work at all. I think Animals United matches it as being a very poor film....disappointed. If you are looking for a friendship/environmental animation, then go straight for A Turtles Tale, by far a much better film....especially in 3D!

This was, by far, one of the most atrociously boring movies I have ever had the displeasure of seeing. The only two redeemable qualities about it are the surprisingly competent visuals and the environmental issues it raises.

Love the message of preserving our oceans, but it lacks the flow and coherence of higher budget animated movies. Probably recommend for slightly older children (5+).

Great movie and fun fill adventure for all in the Family! Imagine the sea creatures such as sharks able to walk on land with some great mechanical vehicle. Lots of laugh and fun to watch and great to see some good story telling with special animation and twist coming from Malaysia. This is another alternative option yet equivalent or comparable in quality with mega budget Hollywood or Pixar feature animations. I highly recommend it and go see it with the rest of your friends and family. It's somehow reminds me of Finding Nemo but the entire story works out quite differently at the end with great scenery of the local Malaysia beaches. Another thing in this movie is that it highlights the environmental issue faced by the sea creatures caused by humans and also a clear message to all on shark hunting for their fins & the diminishing shark species due to this trade. This message drives home with the current urgency to educate and encourages people not to eat shark fins thus the killing will eventually stop! Anyhow go to see this movie and enjoy yourself.

Crikey!

'SeaFood' is utterly dire. I'm not going to slaughter this film (too much!), as always I have respect for anyone who creates a production as it isn't easy. With that said, this is a serious waste of 93 minutes.

Awful animation, poor voice cast and an absolutely terrible premise. It may, minorly, allude to real life issues such as poaching, ocean pollution and even bullying, but it doesn't take it any further than the baseline of those things being bad. The dialogue is dreadful, not helped by the numerous awkward silent chunks created by the animation.

It also doesn't know what it wants to be called either, "SeaFood" on the DVD cover but "SeeFood" on the onscreen menu. At the end it says "See" before changing to "Sea", so I guess it's intentional? Odd either way.

Up there for the worst film I've seen. Not even sure the supposed target audience would enjoy this. The only (extremely) slight praise I can give is that it isn't a full-on 'Finding Nemo' rip-off, as seems the case in the opening minutes.

This was very disappointing. The animation and script are both lacking, making for boring viewing. I watched this with my 2 boys (ages 9 and 7) and couldn't help comparing it with it's much more sophisticated (and funnier) brother "Finding Nemo". Having watched many animations over the years, I've come to expect a script that appeals to both children AND the parents or adults who accompany them to the cinema. This film was so unfunny and cliché, plus it took time to get going, with lots of scenes that didn't seem to add anything to the plot. In fact, a lot of the story is disjointed, with no setting of the characters and how they relate to one another, or why the main character is on his quest. I would avoid this unless you've watched just about everything else and are left without much choice...

Come join Pup and Julius on a fun-filled adventure to a place filled with colorful characters and unending mystery-land! When poachers steal dozens of egg sacks from Pup's reef, he makes it his mission to save his brothers and sisters, no matter how impossible the task may seem. His determination to make right what is wrong takes him above the water into Man's world - a landscape fraught with beauty and danger and an exciting destination the young bamboo shark could never ever have imagined! Afraid for Pup's safety, Julius embarks on his own quest to bring home his best pal. In an outlandish "fish-suit", you will believe a shark can walk on land in the thrill-a-minute action and laugh-out-loud comedy, great for the entire family.

I was expecting Sea Level to be a cheap Finding Nemo ripoff similar to those bootleg Video Brinquedo movies, but it has a lot more effort put into it than those. The movie does have some interesting ideas, at least, but it's EXTREMELY slow. I almost fell asleep multiple times watching this, it's a huge slog up until the last 20 minutes or so.

The best parts of this movie are the action sequences, they're actually pretty engaging and fun to watch. There are a lot of them towards the end of the movie, but for the first ~70% of it, you'll mostly just be watching the characters talk. This would not be an issue, except this movie's dialogue is just so BORING. I don't think there was a single joke or witty line in the entire movie aside from a few sight gags. In addition, the movie's voice acting is...not great. The voices of the humans are all terrible, and the voice of Pup (the main character) gets pretty grating after a while...he just sounds really whiny the whole time.

I also don't think this is a very good movie for children; this is partially because the movie is extremely boring and won't retain their interest for very long, but also because a lot of it is just...not really appropriate to be showing to young kids. Mind you, I don't like it when parents go over the top with sheltering their children, but this movie is a bit more...extreme than most other children's animated movies I've seen. There's blood, animal carcasses, a physically and verbally abusive family, and at one point one of the characters says "hell". I wouldn't call my parents overprotective, but I doubt even they wouldn't have let me watch this movie.

All of those problems aside, the movie does have some good parts. I liked how the water and land animals kind of came together at the end, that was a neat idea. Making the main character a mudskipper (a fish that can breathe and walk above water) was also a cool concept, and it becomes very important later on in the movie. The other characters weren't much to write home about, though, aside from the chickens. The chickens were a lot of fun. Aside from them, the rest of the ensemble cast is pretty lame, and there's a "villain" (the eel) that literally does nothing in the entire movie. You could take him out of the movie completely and nothing would change. Also, like I said before, the action sequences were entertaining.

Overall, while Sea Level is WAAAY better than I expected, it is not a good movie. Watch Finding Nemo or even Shark Tale instead of this.

I'm a 30 year old male with no children yet but my wife is 8 months pregnant. The reason I share this is because the reviews of the movie on here are way to over critical of this film.

This was made in Malaysia, not by Pixar and not by Disney. They did a wonderful job on there first try out of making a animation/3D. I caught it on HDNET on TV, and actually watched the whole thing even surprising myself and when I found out who made the film I was very presently surprised.

This is something I'd be willing to purchase for my soon to be born baby girl. It was a great movie.

This movie was not as bad as a lot of reviewers posted. All of the negative traits the characters had showed a lesson of why not to be that way. Had a happy ending. I give this movie 10 out of 10 for kids and adults alike.

The plot, the animation, the colours, and the characters were good, and the ending was heart warming, best movie ever! The babies were so cute, the chickens were cool and awesome, and I especially loved the part where a little girl sees the shark running in his suit thingy.