Not so good.

Rating: Null/10 (4 April 2005)

Under The Sea
by Amber Farnham
Will Smith's recent DVD release Shark Tale is unlike his other movies. The wonderful cast in this movie leads you to believe that it will be wonderful, but don't let that deceive you. For a Will Smith movie, it is okay, but that is not saying much. Will Smith plays Oscar, a fish that is lower than whale poop on the food chain and wishes to claw his way up to the top of the reef. He works at the local whale wash where he has the most demeaning joba tongue scrubber. Then one day, when he is in the wrong place at the wrong time, he takes responsibility for the death of the heir of the shark mafia. Being the first fish to ever kill a shark, Oscar achieves his dream and lives at the top of the reef known as the "shark slayer" and "defender of the reef." It is only after a little bit of time that before Don Lino, the Godfather of the shark mafia finds out who is responsible for the death of his son. He is depressed not only because of his loss, but because now his other son, Lenny, will become the new boss.
Lenny is in trouble too. Incapable of being a shark, he is a shame to his family and decides to run away. In the reef he meets up with Oscar and they come up with a plan to "kill" Lenny and heighten Oscar's fame. Their plan soon backfires because it is impossible to keep this charade up.
All in all, the animation of this movie is wonderful. I loved how the animators basically took New York City and splashed it in the ocean. Time Square and its surroundings were constructed out of coral and all of the inhabitants of this city were fish, a personal favorite was Katie Current (played by Katie Courric). The plot of this movie is not spectacular, but at parts it is mildly funny. The movie plays a lot off of American pop culture and many of the jokes are more immature than most are used to.
One big problem in the movie is all of the advertising. Every scene contained an advertisement. This fact plus the terrible storyline leads me to think that the advertisements were how the filmmakers made their money off of this movie.
In one word, I would describe this movie as "cute." It made me laugh and it was amusing, but this did not make up for all the advertising in the movie. I would recommend this movie for children who do not have great expectations of the movies they watch, otherwise, stay away from this movie.