Entertaining, but cheesy.

Rating: 7/10 (25 September 2004)

Shark Tale was entertaining, but ultimately rather cheesy. The storyline is fairly simplistic about a fish named Oscar who wants to move out of the inner city and to the "top of the reef" without having to do anything to actually deserve it, like work. It comes out like a cross between Car Wash and the Godfather, which is basically as bizarre as it sounds.
Don't get me wrong, it's full of sight gags and you'd have to watch the movie several times to determine what all those undersea versions of popular brands are ("Coral Cola," "Kelpy Kreme"). Most of the dialogue is peppered with Wiseguyisms and hiphopisms that are a bit dated and unfunny. It was a bit bothersome that they bothered to use the ocean as a setting, yet made all the fish move in a completely human manner. But it was really fun seeing certain actors as fish, and the introduction of "Sebastian the Whale Washing Dolphin" was highly amusing. I also found Ziggy Marley telling Oscar that he was singing a reggae song poorly to be very funny.
Decent enough movie, but not as good as recent DreamWorks animations.