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Shark Tale (Widescreen Edition)
: There comes a time and place when a animation industry decides to look outside the natural surroundings of atmospheric beauty and flaws of oxygen-reliant land in which its movies were taken place, and starts focusing on a creation surrounding on the dark and murky fields of salty H2O with all the invertebrates and oblivious creatures with gills that inhabit within these regions. Of course, talking fishes and incomprehensible activities against laws of nature isn't exactly accurate to real life under the sea, but hey, this is a cartoon, WE DON'T NEED NO FISHY ACCURACY!
~REVIEW~
Welcome to the aquatic world of "Shark Tale", where its scenery is, for lack of a suitable word, "Street." Graffiti on the walls, crime sprees, mobsters, bad mouthing back-seat drivers...(???) Yep, unusual as it is, this is suppose to be the New York scene in the watery environment. Dreamworks Animation decides to ante up this production by adding enough star power and referential details to test the satisfaction of every modern adult. "Shark Tale" hybrids itself using the visual subtlety of "Finding Nemo" and the humorous trait of "Shrek", and while this movie couldn't surpass both, it's still an entertaining film otherwise.
The world of "Shark Tale" follows two groups: The Reefs and the Normies. The Reefs are an underground mafia consist of Sharks and other dangerous swimming creatures, ruled by Don Lino (Robert de Niro). His two sons, Lenny and Frankie (Jack Black and Michael Imperioli), are his successors, but the focus is on Lenny, but he doesn't want to participate his pappy's throne, because this vegetarian (that's right, a veggie-eaten shark) doesn't like to slaughter. The Normies are a bunch of regular scales-and-fins living to survive the community. And then there's Oscar (Will Smith), a green egotistic fish who's worse that whale poo. Oscar was a nobody who wanted to be a somebody that deserves recogntion, even though his "supported" friend Angie (Renee Zellweger) believes he's a somebody to her.
These two groups begin to cross paths, as Oscar is messing with the wrong boss after not paying major debt for his stupid get-rich schemes, and was then tied up and drifted in the bottom of the sea. Oscar was then confronted by the Don's sons in their practice to become ferocious meat-eaters. Lenny did what he could help the weak fish, but Frankie was quick on his fin to gobble up the egotist, until an anchor crushed him from above. It all began as a big misunderstanding as the fishes believe Oscar is the one that has slain the shark. With Lenny joining an unlikely pack later on, Oscar and his white lie made him a somebody, and his false credibility got him the easy life as a "The Sharkslayer." That is, until the sharks have to deal with him.
"Shark Tale's" story goes on an all-too-familiar routine with no surprises, no shocks, and no twists. This is a linear plot that get no deeper than the depths of the Pacific Ocean, and I believe a veteran movie-goer can agree with me on this. It has moments that makes this movie stand out. The movie had its share of good laughs, especially that "car wash" scene in the beginning, and it doesn't disappoint me. While the art design isn't as visceral as "Finding Nemo", I have to give credit for the looks on the characters. Dreamworks did a great jobs of translating the physical and witty characteristics of the celebrities into their cartoon roles (though that is what Dreamworks has done best). The best has to be Angelina Jolie in her character as Lola, which not only capture her stunning looks and trademark lips, they also capture the bruteness of her inner personality.
Let's talk about the pop culture references in "Shark Tale." They cover up all forms of media: "Goodfellas", "Jerry McGuire", "Mc Hammer", "Jaws", "Scarface", "Car Wash", "Tag Team", THAT'S TOO MUCH! I'm beginning to think 65% of this movie's script is nothing but one-liners coming from other movies. The point is: there's so many pop culture references in this movie, it's irritating. Did I mention this movie is also racy? When I hear Oscar say "Don't Worry. You white fish never got it the first time", I thought that was just too much and too late to start with these empty slurs. And any movie that has the overused ending with characters dancing for no reason while playing some popular song in the background with someone singing it, needs to come up with a different closure!
THE FINAL WORD: Thin. It's funny how a movie that took place 90,000 leagues under the sea could display as being shallow. For those who wants a little "Soul" in their fish movie, put down your "Finding Nemo" DVD and check out this flick. Otherwise, while "Shark Tale" has the wit and the star power, its derivative storyline and ridiculous lines balances out its positives. Don't consider this to win Animated Movie of the Year.
 MAYBE NOT ON THE LEVEL AS NEMO...BUT STILL PRETTY COOL~!
Undoubtedly one of the most famous, and most entertaining (depending on who you ask), rivalries in Hollywood would have to belong to the ongoing conflict between the Walt Disney Company and Dreamworks SKG. After Jeffrey Katzenberg left Disney in 1994 to form his own movie studio with hot-shot director Steven Spielberg, the two studios have butted heads on more then a few occasions and look to continue to do so in the future. This rivalry has gotten so bad that one or the other have accused the other of ripping off their ideas in order to profit from their success. In 1998, two animated films featuring insects opened up in theaters - PDI's Antz in October followed by Pixar's A Bug's Life less then a month later. Conveniently Dreamsworks' eventual Oscar winning animated film Shrek, featuring a monster for a lead, opened just six months prior to the release of Disney's Monsters Inc. which, obviously, focused on the world of monsters.And if this obvious trend of copy-catting isn't apparent by now then perhaps this latest match-up will. Following the smashing success of Disney/Pixar's Finding Nemo which netted $340 million domestically alone, Dreamsworks, attempting to one-up Disney before the release of their latest venture with Pixar The Incredibles, hopes Shark Tale will raise their future IPOs to sky-high levels.
The story centers on a "small fish in a big pond", also known as the ocean, who lies to become a big shot but finds out that holding up the lie was a lot harder then he originally thought. Oscar has huge aspirations for himself but little effort to back it up with. Most of the time he spends coming up with crazy "get rich quick" schemes, for example - bottled water, and trying to persuade his boss to give him the money to enact on those plans. Unfortunately, those plans, as would be expected, never pay off and Oscar finds himself five-thousand clams in debt with his boss, who is pressuring him for the money thanks to his partnership with Don Lino, the mafia shark of the ocean. When Oscar can't pay his boss, he's tied up and dumped into the middle of a training ground for sharks, with Frankie, the oldest son of Don Lino, heading straight for him. Just as Oscar seems to be done it, an anchor mysterious falls onto Frankie's head and kills him. Since no one is around when the event occurs, Oscar makes up the story that he beat up Frankie in a fight and dubs himself "The Sharkslayer". This outrageous event brings Oscar a wide range of fame and fortune but when the Don discovers who he is, a bounty has been placed on his head. Oscar can't see what the fuss is all about over one teeny-tiny little white lie. The story for Shark Tale is a problem within itself, specifically there's very little of it present and any that does exist is all too generic and predictable to be called the least bit interesting, even by preschool standards. The film's entire premise and purpose is based on its trivial references to popular culture. This means that whenever there is a drought of references then the story suffers severely and slowly begins to drag. Even when references are made (for example, Corral-Cola ... big laugh everyone) they aren't gut-busters, let alone thought provoking, which is the direct opposite of Pixar's line of humor.
As with any Dreamworks animated venture, whether it be traditional, which has virtually gone the way of the dinosaur not just with this studio, or computer-generated, the studio devotes more time on stock-piling A-list voice-over talent rather then a more prominent issue, specifically the story, and Shark Tale is no exception to the rule. Will Smith, the former Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, voices the fast-talking fish-out of water ... well, umm, fish named Oscar. If you find Smith's slick spiel and - then you'll be loathing the hour and a half of this film. There was so much promise as his fabulous performances in Men In Black and Independence Day but now it seems as though Wild, Wild West woke us up to the reality that, like the film, his choice of film projects stinks on ice. And here's a question for the older audience members, aka the parents purposely dragged to this feature by their all-too cute children, does Will Smith's Oscar not draw eerie similarities to the Incredible Mr. Limpet? Scary, huh? The problem with the film's aquatic cast of characters is not exactly their material, though that's separate problem itself, but rather it is the performers themselves. The real issue is that we've all seen, or heard, these actors and actresses play out these exact same characters in an obviously different environment. For example, Robert DeNiro as a mafia boss - Who didn't see that one coming? Granted it might have been slightly more entertaining had the filmmakers stuck with their original choice, that being James Gandolfini, but not by much. The same goes for Smith as the fast-talking and wise-cracking hero, Jolie as the sexy seductress, and Black as the dim-witted, yet lovable, sidekick.
Overall, whether Shark Tale is a cheap attempt to cash in on the success of the underwater family film Finding Nemo or a lame attempt at pop culture humor, in either case it just simply doesn't work. After marveling audiences this past summer with the vastly superior Shrek 2, both Dreamworks and PDI demonstrate that someone seriously dropped the beach-ball on this one, perhaps while executives at the top were distracted counting the stockpiles of money the highly anticipated sequel brought it. It's a hard job but someone, beside the accountant, has to do it.First off, there doesn't seem to be a story with this film at all except for a striking similarity to the Brave Little Tailor, but other then that, it was basically free reign for the animators to do what they wanted. And secondly, the differences between Pixar and PDI are prominent when it comes to pop culture references. With Pixar, they concentrate primarily on the film's story and, whenever they have the opportunity to, they insert a reference to a movie or a celebrity or something like that - they never force the story into a direction for the sole purpose of a joke or base an entire film on a running-gag concept, as this film does. Shark Tale is not by any stretch of the imagination a horrible film, parts are even quite charming, but, not to give the filmmakers too much credit, does lack the originality and spunk that would deem it an enjoyable film.
Shark Tale is a big and colorful adaptation of the old story of the nobody who becomes somebody because he lets everyone believe he performed a heroic feat that he didn't perform and learns all the right lessons along the way. The hero is Oscar who works as little as possible as a tongue scraper in a whale wash. You gotta love that concept.
The movie works as well as it does because of the clever supporting cast. Robert DeNiro is the voice of the Godfather shark, Don Lino. Renee Zellweger is a beautiful choice for the voice of the gal friend the hero doesn't notice because he is so caught up in his own foolish dreams. Jack Black is fabulous (and I think steals the movie) as Lenny the vegetarian shark / dolphin. Martin Scorcese is a blowfish with bushy eyebrows who runs the whale wash. The eyebrows are used to good effect. The whole cast is very good, the story is solid, and the animation is stunning and at times it is amazing.
This movie is not in the same league as Finding Nemo, but it is a good movie that families can enjoy together and kids will find especially amusing and the adults will have fun noticing other things and find special enjoyment in the multiple encounters with the "big mouth" shrimp and his little friends or Michael Imperioli's "Frankie" creeping out his brother Lenny by singing the shark theme music from Jaws. Pretty fun if not exactly inspired.
 SHARK TALE is a good movie not as good as finding nemo. it is a colerful enjoyment it is a pretty long movie .Kids will like this movie.it has no cuss words in it.i still wonder why it was rated PG.
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