The Moose Hole - Review of Shark Tale

Rating: 6/10 (4 October 2004)

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.
My Rating: *** out of 5 (Grade: C-)