Shark Tale (2005) Will Smith Turns The Ocean into a Ghetto State

As an animated film, Shark Tale is an average film. It does nothing that makes it stand out or excel, when compared to other CGI created animated films. In fact if anything stands out about it, is how greatly flaccid it is. After viewing it, you get the impression that you just watched a mildly entertaining "B movie". 

Now, it holds most things that you would think would bring the, ha ha ha. Things that failed in this film.. like pop culture jokes(even if they skew the movie greatly), self-indulgent celeb. voicing (that makes you cringe more than laugh), and splashing neon animation (that looks to distract.. rather than enhance). So they failed in the executing of them, and were mild in extracting our excitement. Looking like something that could turn into Shrek or Ice Age, we end up with a product closer to The Emperor's New Groove.

The Product

Shark Tale is an animated movie, that takes place in the ocean. In a world were fish talk and have built reefs that look less like the actual ocean (like in Finding Nemo)and more like a fishopolis city with N.Y. embodiment. In a sort of mafia story, it relates a tale of what occurs when a shark boss of a fish crime family (played by Robert De Niro) finds out that his son has been killed. While in actuality he was killed by a dropped anchor, a different story is told since a bottom-feeding fish named Oscar (characterized by Will Smith) is found at the scene of the crime (looking as if he slayed the beast). 

Hoping to gain a measure of favor with the ganglord's enemies, the speedy-speaking hustler portrays himself as the killer, who goes on to be known as the "sharkslayer". Unfortunately, in his attempt of being witty and slick, he rapidly is faced with the reality of playing a dangerous game with dangerous people. Specially in a world that is dog eat... er.. big fish eats.. small fish world.

By the bill alone, you would think that the film would produce something interesting. Big names tend to produce big expectations. Yet here, regardless of the over stuffing of buzz producing names.. the result is something slightly above average.