List Price: $12.98
Sale Price: $8.98
Today's Bonus: 31% Off
Oscar (Smith) the fish leads a normal life. He is just an average guy working at the Whale Wash. One day, he wanders into shark territory and is chased by Frankie. Unfortunately for Frankie, the chase ends in his death, not at Oscar's hands, but by pure accident. Oscar sees as an opportunity to "be someone", and quickly takes the credit. The fish world begins to call him the "Shark Slayer", two female fish begin to show their interest, and the shark godfather (DeNiro) makes it his business to find the murderer of Frankie...his son.
"Shark Tale" is yet another animated movie that will appeal to both children and adults. The difference is, this time it almost seems made for adults first and kids second. The most obvious references are to "The Godfather" and "Goodfellas", two movies that no kids should have seen. Also, advertising placement has run amok in this movie. Every way you turn in the city, there are obvious "fake ads" for real products that is very distracting. Most everything in this movie is overkill, in fact.
The voice talents are credible and the animation is good, although I found Oscar to look kind of creepy with his near human-looking face. "Shark Tale" also is nothing like "Finding Nemo", which is both good and bad. Good, because it is not retreading material that is not too old yet. Bad, because "Finding Nemo" was so much better. "Shark Tale" is a decent movie that will be enjoyed by most, and I did laugh a number of times while viewing it, but my advice is to wait for DVD.
Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>
DreamWorks Shark Tale is a one-dimensional film from the shallow end of the CGI animation pool. The usual Shrek-formula mix of contemporary cartoon characters, celebrity voices, and pop culture references come together in a marginally entertaining movie with no bite. Finding Nemo blows this out of the water.The movie opens with the reef (reminiscent of Times Square) under siege by sharks (Mob types) Oscar, a fish working at the Whale wash (a derivative of the car wash from Blaxploitation classic "Car Wash")dreams of hitting it big and being a big fish. But he's lazy, irresponsible and constantly late for work. His co-worker has to punch him in and cover for him. He owes his boss five thousand clams. He gets the money but decides to bet it on a long shot at the seahorses. Meanwhile, A group of mob sharks (symbolic) are trying to get the son of the Don to "shark up" and eat a fish. They discover Oscar soon after his torture at the hands of jellyfish. A freak accident leads up to the death of one of the sharks and Oscar gets the rep of the "Shark slayer" (I find it odd there's a Mafia in the reef but no police counterpart. A sign of how poorly written this script is.)
In the aftermath there's a boatload of media frenzy; Oscar is a superstar living in a penthouse. But he finds it lonely at the top. He longs for more. His house of cards starts to fall when the sensitive shark comes to Oscar for help. They stage a fight and Oscar pretends to kill him. Later, he helps him find cover as a dolphin. Oscar's girlfriend is kidnapped after his boss picks a fight with the sharks. Oscar and the sensitive shark go to face off with the sharks inside the Titanic. After an antic climatic confrontation, Oscar and the shark confess, and all is forgiven within the reef. In the End Oscar gets his girl, is promoted in his Whale wash job as a partner in the business. ????? Lie, cheat, kill, and still get rewarded in the end because you tell the truth. That's kind of a mixed message to send to kids DreamWorks.
Shark Tale sinks as a movie due to its shallow screenplay. The excessive uses of pop culture references aren't clever here like they are in the Shrek movies. Instead they cover up a weak story with little depth and substance. What's sad is these pop culture references reinforce the worst stereotypes about minorities, women and ethinic groups. Even with a multi-ethnic cast, the entire animated feature comes off like a computer generated blaxploitation film. I wish the writers of Shark Tale had given the characters some of the complexity of their Pixar counterparts from Finding Nemo. The struggles of Nemo and his dad stayed with me long after the movie ended. On top of it, the sharks in that movie were so evil it was scary.
The animation here is well-Meh. Compared to the beautiful 3-D CGI work Pixar did on Finding Nemo Shark Tale's computer animation falls flat. While the art design is very colorful, it lacks depth and dimension. Character movements look and feel artificial; the facial expressions are way too over exaggerated. The reef backgrounds looks and feels about as realistic as a painting or a drawing used in TV 2-D animation; this is far below the standard set in DreamWorks' Shrek movies. I dare to say the hand-drawn animation and backgrounds in DreamWorks early 2-D animated features The Prince of Egypt, Road to El Dorado and Sinbad were richer and more detailed than the ones used in this movie.
Despite the all celebrities the voice over work in this one falls flat. Will Smith just does his Fresh Prince bit here like he does in all his movies. He comes off just like his sitcom character from that stale 90's sitcom. Renee Zellwegger is good as Oscar's best friend and love interest. Jack Black is decent as the sensitive shark. Doug E. Doug is flat as one of the jellyfish. Robert De Nero and Martin Scorsese, and Angelina Jolie, phone it in. Katie Couric has actually done better work on the CBS Evening news.
Pass this toothless Shark tale by. Head to the deep end of the video rack and Pick up Pixar's Finding Nemo. Or get The Incredibles, Toy Story or Toy Story 2. If you want a DreamWorks Movie get The Prince Of Egypt, the Shrek Series. If you have older kids get Road To El Dorado.
Best Deals for Shark Tale (Widescreen Edition) (2004)
I can't even rationalize giving it 1 star because that implies it got 1/5 of "something" while I can't see that it did anything right, except set up a lucrative platform to launch millions of "fanfare" junk to market to kids i.e. numerous video games, coloring books, clothing, pc software, and soundtracks all appear when typing in Shark Tale on amazon's search.After watching it with my significant other, we pondered off and on for about 24 hours trying desperately to think of a worse movie that we have seen. Still none have come to mind.
This movie plays off of every stereotype I can think of. The "cool" black guy who raps and dances, the white guy that can't dance or doesn't know any cool hand shakes, the jamaicans that are dumb, the italians that are mobsters, the white chick that is meek....and finally the unintended, me, the viewer that wants to puke. If my kids were subjected to this I would have a lot of explaining to do to dispell all the stereotypes that are maximized in this movie, ok that trivializes what my role of a parent would be if they were subjected to this...if I had taken any kid to see this movie I would have left early, which isn't an easy task with kids.
This movie shamelessly plugged so many consumer products I felt like I was sitting through one big commercial, Gup instead of Gap, Guppy Kremes instead of Kristpy Kremes, Coral Cola instead of Coka Cola to name a few mock products which are obvious advertisements for the real product due to the likeness in trademarks. Way to target that young market, corporate whores!
Also the moral of ths story seemed to be if you screw up about a hundred times, some chick will help you out, then you can screw over that chick about a hundred times, lie to the entire community, and in the end everyone will like you any way and the chick will come back to you if you buy her balloons. EXCELLENT MESSAGE FOR ALL!!
Honest reviews on Shark Tale (Widescreen Edition) (2004)
I agree with those saying this is like a Rap Video set under the sea (in a fantasy world) and starring badly animated fish.The animation is pretty bad, especially after seeing Pixar films like 'Finding Nemo' or 'The Incredibles' where it's top notch.
There's no story to speak of. It's all so forgettable. It's riddled with every stereotype and cliche you can think of. I can't even imagine what the execs at DreamWorks were thinking when they greenlighted this thing.
Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Shark Tale (Widescreen Edition) (2004)
The WORST Animated movie ever made. I sat thru this boring, shallow story hoping it would get better and it just got worse. Bad music, bad story, bad voice talent, over payed voice talent.The low point of this movie was when CGI fish versions of Missy Eliot and that other chick sang car wash. Hey, it was a WHALE WASH not a car wash.
AVOID this movie. Watch a Pixar movie over and have alot better time. I can't beleive this came from the makers of Shrek which I loved.
No comments:
Post a Comment