The best parts are on the trailer, and the trailer was poor.

Rating: 5/10 (12 February 2005)

I didn't think this looked very promising from the trailers I saw, but it had the vocal talents of Robert De Niro, Angelina Jolie, Will Smith, and Martin Scorsese, so I figured it had to be pretty good, right? Surely they all saw something in the material? Perhaps Jack Black would be funny as the cowardly shark? Nope. It's just poor animation in a poor film with poor humor and so-so vocal talents. First of all Will Smith is too self-aware. He seems to "know" he's providing his vocal talents so everything is sickeningly over-the-top and staged. De Niro's good but rarely in the film to be honest. Jolie is OK, Scorsese and Black are pretty funny and Zellweger seems to be most at ease with voice recording.
Whereas the animation in "Shrek" was rather good (in a purposely fake way) the animation in "Shark Tale" is sloppy and disappointing. Also, I hate to sound racist but this really just seems like a version of "Finding Nemo" targeted towards the African-American demographic. Oscar the Fish (Smith) and his grandfather (complete with a stereotypical afro) run a "wash" and so we get a soundtrack with songs like "Car Wash." How original.
The humor isn't consistently funny, there are a few good gags but they've all been done before (such as Katie Couric being replaced with Katie "Current" - didn't they do this in "Shrek 2" with another news reporter??).
The fact that all the ads boast FROM THE CREATORS OF SHREK! says something for the quality of this film. It relies upon the reputation of its big brother for success. "Shrek" walked the thin line of brilliant satire and muddled adult animation. (I.e. adult-oriented jokes.) "Shark Tale" seems to stray from the path and somewhere along the way becomes _too_ adult in nature, creating a rather uncomfortable undercurrent dealing with murder and Mafia and violence and even sex, depending on how far you want to take the implications of the sensuous, seductive fish voiced by Jolie.
I'm not going to say it's a bad film because it's adult. I'm just saying that's one of its fault. Overall, it's just not very interesting, funny, well-acted or impressive, in terms of both animation and story. I wasn't disappointed as I didn't expect very much. I'm hoping Dreamworks stops making animated CGI films - they've proved countless times with projects such as "Ice Age" and the overrated (albeit enjoyable) "Shrek" that Pixar is far superior.
I really loved "Shrek 2" (more so than the original - by a long shot) and that gave me some hope in this project, but after seeing it I felt assured that the best parts were included on the trailer - and since the trailer was rather unimpressive to begin with, that just goes to show how mediocre this film really is.
A milestone: the first CGI film to gain a majority of negative reviews from critics nationwide.