Customer Reviews

Shark Tale (+ Bonus DVD of Madagascar Penguins "A Christmas Caper")

5 star:		(79)
4 star:		(45)
3 star:		(54)
2 star:		(40)
1 star:		(33)

 

 

Oscar (Smith) the fish leads a normal life. He is just an average guy working at the Whale Wash. One day, he wanders into shark territory and is chased by Frankie. Unfortunately for Frankie, the chase ends in his death, not at Oscar's hands, but by pure accident. Oscar sees as an opportunity to "be someone", and quickly takes the credit. The fish world begins to call him the "Shark Slayer", two female fish begin to show their interest, and the shark godfather (DeNiro) makes it his business to find the murderer of Frankie...his son.

"Shark Tale" is yet another animated movie that will appeal to both children and adults. The difference is, this time it almost seems made for adults first and kids second. The most obvious references are to "The Godfather" and "Goodfellas", two movies that no kids should have seen. Also, advertising placement has run amok in this movie. Every way you turn in the city, there are obvious "fake ads" for real products that is very distracting. Most everything in this movie is overkill, in fact.

The voice talents are credible and the animation is good, although I found Oscar to look kind of creepy with his near human-looking face. "Shark Tale" also is nothing like "Finding Nemo", which is both good and bad. Good, because it is not retreading material that is not too old yet. Bad, because "Finding Nemo" was so much better. "Shark Tale" is a decent movie that will be enjoyed by most, and I did laugh a number of times while viewing it, but my advice is to wait for DVD.

I can't even rationalize giving it 1 star because that implies it got 1/5 of "something" while I can't see that it did anything right, except set up a lucrative platform to launch millions of "fanfare" junk to market to kids i.e. numerous video games, coloring books, clothing, pc software, and soundtracks all appear when typing in Shark Tale on amazon's search.

After watching it with my significant other, we pondered off and on for about 24 hours trying desperately to think of a worse movie that we have seen. Still none have come to mind.

This movie plays off of every stereotype I can think of. The "cool" black guy who raps and dances, the white guy that can't dance or doesn't know any cool hand shakes, the jamaicans that are dumb, the italians that are mobsters, the white chick that is meek....and finally the unintended, me, the viewer that wants to puke. If my kids were subjected to this I would have a lot of explaining to do to dispell all the stereotypes that are maximized in this movie, ok that trivializes what my role of a parent would be if they were subjected to this...if I had taken any kid to see this movie I would have left early, which isn't an easy task with kids.

This movie shamelessly plugged so many consumer products I felt like I was sitting through one big commercial, Gup instead of Gap, Guppy Kremes instead of Kristpy Kremes, Coral Cola instead of Coka Cola to name a few mock products which are obvious advertisements for the real product due to the likeness in trademarks. Way to target that young market, corporate whores!


Also the moral of ths story seemed to be if you screw up about a hundred times, some chick will help you out, then you can screw over that chick about a hundred times, lie to the entire community, and in the end everyone will like you any way and the chick will come back to you if you buy her balloons. EXCELLENT MESSAGE FOR ALL!!

The most amazing thing to me about this movie is how a film this popular could be so BORING! Ugh!

I had heard people talk about how funny it was. Now I wonder what they were drinking when they saw it. I've seen funnier fish films floating on top of the pond. Some of the reviews here say the jokes are geared too much toward adults. That's a pretty sad thing to say about American adults. Or maybe it's because adults are the only ones who could get their hands on enough wacky weed to be able to laugh at this unimaginative, banal misuse of film.

My wife fell asleep while we were watching the DVD. She was the lucky one. Even the cat got off my lap and left the room. I stayed awake waiting for something humorous to happen. I think I smiled one time. The rest of the time I kept cringing at the inane attempts at humor and groaning that I actually spent money on this waste of time.

It looks like they were hoping to come up with a cross between "Shrek" and "Finding Nemo". They failed miserably. Both of those films had a heart, and a brain. This script was trite, the characters clichéd, the jokes stale. The animation and pretty colors were not enough to carry this sea turkey anywhere.

And yes, I got "the joke" about "The Godfather" and "Goodfellas" such as it was. The problem is that "joke" has been used to death.

Another reviewer complained about the product placements. Unfortunately, those were the cleverest moments.

PROS: Nice animation; pretty colors

CONS: Tiresome, one-dimensional characters; tedious plot; lack of imagination.

This definitely ain't Shrek!

Hey Dreamworks! If you are reading this, next time wait until you have a decent script before you start production. Sheesh!

It's my sons favorite movie. What more can be said? He watches it at least once a day, and he is 16 months. Nothing else captures his interest like this movie, I think it's the VIBRANT COLORS, and awesome graphics. This movie is really cute, and very realistic. The actors did an awesome job, the voices really add a lot of personality to the characters. It's also an all star cast, which I think makes it just that much better.. I personally think the movie is cute and funny. It also has a moral to it - I mean "you don't have to be rich and famous to be a somebody - what counts is what's on the inside, and for you to be happy" - and the one line that others may deem "inappropriate" is when Oscar says "Who in the Halibut trips under water?" It's hard to catch at first - because it is said so fast that you really have to listen for it to even catch it. There is obviously also the whole reference to the "godfather" which some might find inappropriate,.. in the end though - There is dialogue that is so much worse than that on t.v. nowadays! The rest of the movie has nothing "inappropriate" in it. If you are still hesitant, then it's at least worth a rental...

I agree with those saying this is like a Rap Video set under the sea (in a fantasy world) and starring badly animated fish.

The animation is pretty bad, especially after seeing Pixar films like 'Finding Nemo' or 'The Incredibles' where it's top notch.

There's no story to speak of. It's all so forgettable. It's riddled with every stereotype and cliche you can think of. I can't even imagine what the execs at DreamWorks were thinking when they greenlighted this thing.

The WORST Animated movie ever made. I sat thru this boring, shallow story hoping it would get better and it just got worse. Bad music, bad story, bad voice talent, over payed voice talent.

The low point of this movie was when CGI fish versions of Missy Eliot and that other chick sang car wash. Hey, it was a WHALE WASH not a car wash.

AVOID this movie. Watch a Pixar movie over and have alot better time. I can't beleive this came from the makers of Shrek which I loved.

I really think in the past few years, the general public has really dropped their expectations of what a good family, or childrens film should be.

With Disney churning out sequel after sequel to mediocre movies, usually straight to video, and Pixar, along with Dreamworks, letting the writing get so bad, it's really hard to remember what an exciting and emotional experience seeing a well thought out plot, solid story telling and quality acting on the big screen can be.

Not to knock the acting, because the actors did exactly what they were asked...it's just that the writing has become so dull, unoriginal and uninspired...I mean, the whole story is lifted, almost word for word from "The Smurfs"...it's just redone with fish...uh, "urban" fish. What genious at the movie studio thought of that? And what's sadder is that the American public seemingly fell for it, shelling out 10 bucks to sit in a movie theater, convinced that because it's CGI animation, it must be good.

This movie, literally bored me to tears.

I have no problems with the fact that this film was obviously written for an adult audience with hopes that kids would enjoy the animation as well. Who says only kids enjoy a good animated/computer-generated movie? And excellent animation it is -- beautiful scenery!!! I just found the movie a bit dull. I guess after you've seen Shreks 1 and 2 and Finding Nemo, you begin to expect the same level of entertainment in future films of the same genre and this one just didn't hold up in my opinion.

A lot of kids' movies have an underlying adult theme. Big deal. We love this movie. In fact, my son has been watching it since he was 2 and has never been scared or confused by the adult themes in it. He also has never said the fish look creepy. In fact, everytime we go to the video store he wants to rent this movie and he'll watch it from beginning to end. He sees sharks and fish and a good story. That's it. I think it's absolutely appropriate for children. He "gets it" in his own 3 year old way. I'm actually on here today to buy the movie since we end up renting it so often.

Great voicework, a fun story, romance plus suspense, lots of sight gags, movie-fan in-jokes, fine animation and a great soundtrack. That's "Shark Tale" in a nutshell.

I can't figure out why people comparing this to "Finding Nemo." They are not alike, and comparisons really are pointless. In fact, Shark Tale is stylistically distinct from most other animated films of recent years. It also has its own brand of humor, which is funny in ways quite unlike the typical Pixar/Disney offering we've gotten used to.

Shark Tale is informed by urban culture, which is why *this* reef is traversed by buses (whales) and police cars (orcas), and has a giant screen TV above it all, featuring live news feeds, commercials, and so on. It's much, much closer to the "real" world of humans than one is used to seeing.

In Finding Nemo, one can't recognize the face of Albert Brooks in Marlin the cartoon fish. But in this movie, Oscar is physically reminiscent of Will Smith, Don Leno really reminds one of Robert DeNiro, and Sikes is, somehow, a dead ringer for Martin Scorsese.

In my view, this adds to the humor and the fun. Don Leno is written as a broad cariacature of Mafia dons, and DeNiro has of course played the ultimate human version -- Don Corleone, in the Godfather trilogy. There are other movie in-jokes all over the place.

A gang of shrimp, formerly destined for Don Leno's dinner, escape -- and when they later find a chance to attack Don Leno, the head shrimp says "Say hello to my little friends" -- a line from Al Pacino's famous turn in Scarface, made hilarious by the oddball new setting.

When Oscar defeats Lenny in a staged fight, and poses for the news cameras to publicize his new role as the Sharkslayer, he recites other movie lines that are inane, even surrealistic in this context, like "You can't handle the truth" (Jack Nicholson's line from A Few Good Men), and then "You had me at hello" (Renée Zellweger's line from Jerry Maguire).

The latter line demonstrates just how shallow Oscar is (he can't even come up with original words to boast with), while showing how mindless and uncritical the crowds are (they cheer the line despite its nonsensicality). Meanwhile, it's an inside joke for movie viewers who note that Ms. Zellweger is in this film, too, playing Oscar's "true" love interest, Angie.

Sikes' henchmen are two jellyfish, and the filmmakers depicted them as Jamaican rasta men, with tentacles in lieu of long dreadlocks. They then typecast reggae stars Ziggy Marley and Doug E. Doug in the roles. They're perfect as the character voices, while also providing great music for the soundtrack.

The film's distinctive style may cause one to overlook the skill that must have been required to depict all these characters as fish, with more-or-less realistic swimming motions, who nevertheless manage goofy slapstick right out of vaudeville. If you pay attention you notice Don Leno's consigliere, Luca, pouring a cup of tea -- which, of course, flows out of the cup and into the surrounding water before Luca can drink it. I mean, this kind of stuff is silly, but (in my view) is funny mostly because nobody in the film calls attention to it.

The ONLY reason I held back from five full stars is because it really isn't appropriate for the very young -- like, under six or seven at least (in my view). I find it frustrating at how hard it is to find a good animated film that doesn't have a lot of violence or adult themes. There is a fair amount of fighting and other types of conflict, which some kids might be used to -- but in any case, now you know.

Bottom line, it's a fun film that stands up to repeat viewing, and if the parents approve it for their kids, it's perfect for whole-family movie nights. Hint: get ready to dance when the music rolls over the end credits!