Shark Fail

Rating: 2/10 (15 May 2016)

This lame comedy feels like it was written by studio executives, capitalizing on the latest trends. The pop culture references are stale and weak, I mean who was making MC Hammer jokes in 2004? Like Pixar's Cars, the whole idea makes no sense. How are there complicated electronics like video games and TVs working underwater? How do lava lamps work underwater? The endless fish puns are insufferable too (Mussel Crowe? Ha. Ha.) Most of the anthropomorphic character designs of the fish are weird and off putting. And Will Smith's fish protagonist is too thoughtless and uncaring to be sympathetic.
Another problem is the tired "Go to the big city story". How many times have we seen this played out trope which has a bumbling but likable hero who has big plans and dreams of going to the big city, or moving up in the world. Flick from Pixar's A Bug's Life wanted to go to bug city and be somebody, Rodney from 2005's Robots wanted to go to Robot City and be an inventor. And here we have Will Smith fish, who wants to be a somebody. The actual dialogue is "I'm a small fish in a big ocean". How lazy can you get?
The positives? Some of the music is cool, the animation is OK, and I liked Martin Scorsese as a puffer fish, he actually makes this tolerable to sit through. Apart from that, this stinks like decomposing cod.