Great Film: Shark Tale
Not too bad, but not too good either.
Round two of the Pixar/Dreamworks choose-a-theme competition scores
once again for Pixar.
Remember when a few years ago there were two animated ant movies to
choose from? I think they even came at the same time in the theaters in
my country. One was AntZ, the other was A Bug's Life. The first one was
rumoured to be more suited to adults, the other a kiddie movie. While
that statement had some merit, at the end it turned out that A Bug's
Life was a far better movie entertainment-wise, despite cuter
characters and simpler story and all that kiddie-like appearance. AntZ
were just plain dull.
Pixar seems to like choosing a simple story, one that a kid can
understand, and than building upon it creating a wonderful movie for
all ages. Dreamworks builds his scripts on pop-culture references and
more adult themes, and while it works sometimes (Shrek was fantastic),
at other times it just falls flat.
Some say it's unfair to compare Finding Nemo and Shark Tale, them being
totally different movies with the only matching characteristic being
antropomorphic fish, but it seems that the comparison is inevitable.
It's the ants thing all over again. Finding Nemo was simply wonderful,
great movie with a perfect sense of humour and memorable characters.
Sure, they were cute and cuddly, but they had a soul.
Shark Tale, again, tries to appeal to the adults, but this time the
results are even worse. The characters are not so important as the cast
is, even so much that we are being sledgehammered on the head in who's
playing who. A word to the wise - I don't care how big the names doing
the voicework are, I want to immerse in the movie's story. When I saw
Shrek, I didn't see Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy there, I saw Shrek and
Donkey. Here I see De Niro, Smith, Scorsese and so on. At one point I
even caught myself wondering why the other fish keep calling Will Smith
"Oscar".
As for the story, it kind of drags along. I couldn't really sympathize
with the lead character - he is at the same time stupid and so full of
himself that I didn't care about his motivations or the messes he got
himself into. Also, somehow the story didn't map so well in the
underwater world. What is the Shark mafia exactly ? Are they supposed
to be predators or criminals? Basically the mafia thing is here only to
serve as a playground for mob-movie references, but it serves no
purpose story-wise. Also, the entire world seems very unbelievable.
Flahing electrical neon signs? Fire hydrants? It actually backfires,
since instead of getting a kick out of fishes living like humans,
mostly you feel like you're watching an alien movie, with the aliens
resembling our world's fishes in some ways.
All in all, I did enjoy the movie, but only in the sense that I didn't
feel cheated out of my money. A couple of the jokes worked, some
pop-culture references were funny, the movie was not too boring. But
when I remember that after Nemo or Incredibles I was smiling even a few
hours after the movie, then I see that Shark Tale ain't what it
possibly could be. It's just a popcorn movie, easily forgettable. And
rightfully so.
Cast
- Lola played by Angelina Jolie
- Oscar played by Will Smith
- Angie played by Renée Zellweger
- Lenny played by Jack Black
- Don Lino played by Robert De Niro
- Sykes played by Martin Scorsese
- Ernie played by Ziggy Marley
