Title: Shark
Tale
Media: Movie
Genre: Animated,
Kids & Family, Action, Comedy
Rating: PG
Creator: DreamWorks
Edition Reviewed: 2005
Full-Screen Single-Disc DVD
Nine
years ago, there was a huge fish craze. Finding
Nemo had
captured the minds and the imagination of a nation, who decided they
couldn't get enough fish-themed stuff. Clownfish sales skyrocketed.
Fish-themed nurseries popped up in every house with a toddler.
Aquariums became even more popular tourist destinations. And
DreamWorks wanted in on this fishy, money-making goodness by
releasing their own fish movie, Shark
Tale.
I was around thirteen to fourteen years old when this movie came out.
I wanted to see it so badly. There weren't a lot of fish movies
back then that weren't horror movies or chock-full of mermaids, and I
was excited that a new one was already on the market! Never did get
to see it, though; my parents put their feet down and told me “no." I was too much of a good girl to sneak out and see it myself. So I simply did without.
Nine
years later, I finally watch it. And
all I can say is, “Thank you, mom and dad, for not
letting me see this.”
|
The jellyfish on the right is mirroring my expression towards this film. |
Shark Tale is
a 2004 release that follows the aquatic
adventures of unlikely
buddies, Oscar and Lenny.
Oscar is a cleaner wrasse who works down at the whale wash, scrubbing
tongues the way his old man did long ago. Oscar is in gigantic debt,
and needs to pay off 5000 clams to his boss...or else!
Oscar loses the money due to gambling it all away, and is
experiencing
the “or else!” part
of the equation when he meets Lenny.
Lenny
is the son of Don Lino, who is the Godfather
of the sea. Don Lino is ashamed of his
son because he cannot
understand why he
is so … different. He isn't a cold-blooded carnivore like his
brother, Frankie. Lenny is a kind, sweethearted young soul who would
rather make friends than eat fish. This does not help the image of
the shark mafia. To remedy this, Don Lino sends his sons out hunting
in hopes that Frankie will
teach Lenny how to be a real shark. That is when they meet Oscar.
Lenny tries to save Oscar, who is too scared to move. Frankie rushes
in for a tasty snack-wrasse (I apologize for the pun) when he is crushed by an anchor and
killed. When Frankie's body is discovered, the only other fish
around is...Oscar. Oscar claims that he was the one who killed the
vicious shark, netting himself the title of “Sharkslayer” and all
the fame that comes with it.
Hilarity ensues.
Oh, where to start with this one? Because I am an optimist who can find merit in most things, let's discuss the positive aspects of the film first.
Well...Lenny is a bundle of laughs. Jack Black might be the only
actor in the film who plays a character other than himself: he turns
Lenny into one of the most adorkable sharks to have ever hit the big
screen. But that isn't to say Lenny is only an adorkable
shark. There are scenes that show he can be as cunning, wily, and
strong as the rest of the sharks in the mafia. He ends up becoming
one of the most enjoyable characters in the movie simply because he
isn't a carbon-copy of his actor or a cut-and-paste stereotype. He's
a ditz, but he's smart. He's weird, but he's sweet. Kudos to you,
Lenny, for being a three-dimensional character. Wish you hadn't been
wasted on this film.
Some of the other characters are pretty fun to watch, even if they
are just their actors in fish costumes. Robert de Niro and Martin
Scorsese seem to be aware of what sort of movie they're both in and
ham it up as Don Lino and Sykes. Their scenes together are fun to
watch because of the air of medium awareness that follows them: they
know they're in a crappy movie, and we know that they've worked
together in the film business for years. The jellyfish henchmen
twins, Ernie and Bernie, are also fun characters. Doug E Doug and
Ziggy Marley not only infuse them with the type of camaraderie only
twin jellyfish could have, but they make them equal parts goofy and
despicable. The rest of the actors have their self-parodying
moments, but these scenes are nowhere near as enjoyable as these
notable characters.
I'll give the movie bonus points for including some not-so-common
species in the film. It's not every day that a blue streak cleaner
wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus), a Commerson's dolphin,
(Cephalorhyncus commersonii), and a Leopard shark (Triakis
semifasciata) make an appearance in a movie that isn't a
documentary. And that's only a brief example!
The soundtrack's nice.
That's about it.
|
Look at them. I mean, really look at them. |
Now for the negative points. Hope you're comfortable, because this
might take awhile.
Let's start with the animation. Namely, how the water is animated.
Think about the last time you went swimming, whether it was in a lake
or a pool or what have you. Think about how light filtered through
the water, casting beautiful wave-like patterns on light on the
floor. Think about how the space further away from you was just a
mystical haze. Think about how pieces of sediment danced through the
water as you swam past.
None of that is in this movie. None of the things that make water so
distinct from air show up in this movie. Which makes it seem as
though the characters are just hovering in mid-air rather than
swimming through water.
This wouldn't be a problem if the characters weren't already wedged
deeply in the uncanny valley. All of the fish have humanoid faces
that make them look less like fish and more like nightmares. The
eyes don't have a lot of expression behind them, and their lip-sync
is slightly off at times. All of this cobined with the way they just
hover in nothingness creates an illusion of something that is
pretending to be alive ... but isn't. The character who gets hit the
hardest with this is Katie Current, the journalist. Her dead eyes
will haunt me forever.
Speaking of characters, so many of them are just uninteresting.
Oscar is an unlikeable jerk who gambles off his best friend's most
valuable possession simply because he wants to become a millionaire,
lies to get his way, takes pride in his mistaken role as a murderer,
and acts like hes stuck in the 90's. The jellyfish twins'
stupidity can get pretty annoying (and this is coming from someone
who liked them). Even the undersea mafia can make one's eyes
roll in annoyance, such as the sissy orca or the gassy leopard shark.
And I hope you aren't watching this movie in hopes of seeing some
strong female characters. Angie exists to pine after Oscar and be a
generic love interest/damsel in distress. The only other female
character (who means anything to the plot) is Lola, a lionfish who
exists to create a love triangle and provide eye candy for the
audience (and perhaps it's just me, but...a sexy fish?! What were
they thinking?!). In other words, the female characters in this
movie exist to be love interests for the male hero and do nothing
else. Their very existences revolve around Oscar. Great step
forward for creating strong heroines in animated movies, DreamWorks!
The movie relies on pop culture references, toilet humor
and "fish-doing-human-things" jokes (instead of building
characterization) to carry it through. The scenes where they do
attempt to add sentimentality feel forced, and end up falling flat.
The audience has no reason to care about the heroes, after all. The
plot itself builds on a lot of classic scenarios (the small town boy
with big town dreams, the liar revealed, the odd duck son and his
disapproving father, the basic plot of Dragonheart, etc)
without playing with them at all, making every “plot twist”
obvious from the start.
It all adds up to a stinking pile of movie muck.
Lola has one line that describes this movie perfectly: “Deep down,
I'm superficial.” The movie splashes about happily in its
simplicity and lack of charm or characterization. It tries to add in
emotional scenes to prove that it has heart, but it doesn't work.
Lenny's adorable escapades aren't enough to save the film, though he
tries his hardest. In short, Shark Tale was a mediocre movie
that has not aged well through this decade.
At the end of it all, I can only look back on my young teenage self,
shake my head at her in disbelief, and wonder why the heck she wanted
to see
Shark Tale.
Addendum: the DVD I used for reviewing purposes contained an exclusive short called
Club Oscar. The short consisted of the characters dancing in a nightclub. That was it. The best part, however, was that they had a credit
for story. FOR STORY.