Shark Tale (2)

Shark Tale
2004

Directed by:
Bibo Bergeron

Cast:
Will Smith..................Oscar
Robert DeNiro.............Don Lino
Renee Zellweger.........Angie
Jack Black....................Lenny
Angelina Jolie...............Lola

Imagine watching Finding Nemo minus a good script, take away the visual beauty of the computer animation and add every possible movie, pop culture, music reference possible. Add in a who's who list of A list stars and you have this whale of a terd movie.

Crap, crap, crap!

There is very little that is redeeming about this movie. In the ever escalating computer animations war this is a definite defeat for Katzenberg. I felt as though my intelligence was being insulted repeatedly.

Now there are two ways to look at animation films today. Will kids have fun? Will the adults enjoy it? This movie fails miserably on both accounts. It's very easy to pick out the adult moments vs. kid moments (where as Nemo, Monsters are seamless in this area). Shrek 2 dabbled on the grey area of how much adult wink,wink to include but Shark Tale crosses it to the point no one finds it funny. And when I say adult content I don't mean sex, violence, or drugs. In this case I'm referring to De Niro's character as the Shark mob boss, Don Lino. This character along with Peter Faulk and Scorsese are an attempt to get adults to laugh at the connection of Goodfellas meets the sea. Not funny though. All the jokes were one note and visible from space.

I like Will Smith. Had he been sitting next to me while I watched this flick I would have slugged him in the gut. His character was so stereotypical and ANNOYING. Why did their have to be a ghetto fish? Why did every overused street slang appear in this film? Was it entertaining to anyone? Please let me know -- no really I want to hear from someone that believed that this character was in anyway enjoyable (by kids or adults).I laughed once during this entire film. Once. I laughed more at Showgirls. I even felt guilty for the laugh. A cheap shot at gay dolphins. Still kinda funny to me now but come on. If you can remember only one funny moment it means you've watched a real stinker.

In the two days that have followed this disastrous viewing I have conducted an informal poll. I have talked to every person I know that has kids --- all 5 of them. Their kids are ages 3 - 9 years old. I was expecting to hear "oh my kids loved it" and go on thinking that I expect too much from animated films today. What I heard instead:

"We saw it in the theater. My 6 year old wanted to leave after about 20 minutes."
"I rented it for ---- and she fell asleep."
"My Mother bought us a copy. We've watched it once and ---- said 'Mommy that not good'.


Mommy that not good. Pretty much says it all doesn't it. Ahh from the mouths of babes.

I give this 2 pirahnas out of 5.