| Shark Tale | | Cast : | Will Smith, Robert De Niro, Renée Zellweger, Jack Black, Angelina Jolie | | Director : | Rob Letterman, Vicky Jenson, Bibo Bergeron | | Studio : | Dreamworks Animated | | Format : | AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC | | Released Date : | October 01, 2004 | | DVD Released Date : | February 08, 2005 | | Language : | English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Dubbed), Spanish (Dubbed) | | Audience Rating : | PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | November 19, 2007 | | Summary | Not Appropriate for Young Kids! | Content
 | I was really disappointed by this movie! I bought it to view with our young child and found the themes to be too mature. He loves Finding Nemo (G) & Surf's Up (PG), but this movie falls short. The fish faces are creepy and there is a bit too much implied sexuality & violence. The "Godfather" & "Goodfellas" themes do not translate to the G or PG crowd, too much discussion about death & killing. This movie may be mildly amusing to an adult, but if your buying it for your kids, I recommend saving your money! |
| Rating | | | Date | July 15, 2007 | | Summary | A Shark's Tale | Content
| I thought this was a really fun movie for children and adults. With a cast like Robert DeNiro, Martin Scorcese, Will Smith, Angelina Jolie and Renee Zellweger, how can you go wrong? Loved the soundtrack too! |
| Rating | | | Date | July 02, 2007 | | Summary | Great Kids Movie | Content
| Great kids movie teaches a lesson on streching the truth. Really cute plot the movie. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 01, 2007 | | Summary | A Breath of Fresh Air -- underwater! | Content
| Great voicework, a fun story, romance plus suspense, lots of sight gags, movie-fan in-jokes, fine animation and a great soundtrack. That's "Shark Tale" in a nutshell.
I can't figure out why people comparing this to "Finding Nemo." They are not alike, and comparisons really are pointless. In fact, Shark Tale is stylistically distinct from most other animated films of recent years. It also has its own brand of humor, which is funny in ways quite unlike the typical Pixar/Disney offering we've gotten used to.
Shark Tale is informed by urban culture, which is why *this* reef is traversed by buses (whales) and police cars (orcas), and has a giant screen TV above it all, featuring live news feeds, commercials, and so on. It's much, much closer to the "real" world of humans than one is used to seeing.
In Finding Nemo, one can't recognize the face of Albert Brooks in Marlin the cartoon fish. But in this movie, Oscar is physically reminiscent of Will Smith, Don Leno really reminds one of Robert DeNiro, and Sikes is, somehow, a dead ringer for Martin Scorsese.
In my view, this adds to the humor and the fun. Don Leno is written as a broad cariacature of Mafia dons, and DeNiro has of course played the ultimate human version -- Don Corleone, in the Godfather trilogy. There are other movie in-jokes all over the place.
A gang of shrimp, formerly destined for Don Leno's dinner, escape -- and when they later find a chance to attack Don Leno, the head shrimp says "Say hello to my little friends" -- a line from Al Pacino's famous turn in Scarface, made hilarious by the oddball new setting.
When Oscar defeats Lenny in a staged fight, and poses for the news cameras to publicize his new role as the Sharkslayer, he recites other movie lines that are inane, even surrealistic in this context, like "You can't handle the truth" (Jack Nicholson's line from A Few Good Men), and then "You had me at hello" (Renée Zellweger's line from Jerry Maguire).
The latter line demonstrates just how shallow Oscar is (he can't even come up with original words to boast with), while showing how mindless and uncritical the crowds are (they cheer the line despite its nonsensicality). Meanwhile, it's an inside joke for movie viewers who note that Ms. Zellweger is in this film, too, playing Oscar's "true" love interest, Angie.
Sikes' henchmen are two jellyfish, and the filmmakers depicted them as Jamaican rasta men, with tentacles in lieu of long dreadlocks. They then typecast reggae stars Ziggy Marley and Doug E. Doug in the roles. They're perfect as the character voices, while also providing great music for the soundtrack.
The film's distinctive style may cause one to overlook the skill that must have been required to depict all these characters as fish, with more-or-less realistic swimming motions, who nevertheless manage goofy slapstick right out of vaudeville. If you pay attention you notice Don Leno's consigliere, Luca, pouring a cup of tea -- which, of course, flows out of the cup and into the surrounding water before Luca can drink it. I mean, this kind of stuff is silly, but (in my view) is funny mostly because nobody in the film calls attention to it.
The ONLY reason I held back from five full stars is because it really isn't appropriate for the very young -- like, under six or seven at least (in my view). I find it frustrating at how hard it is to find a good animated film that doesn't have a lot of violence or adult themes. There is a fair amount of fighting and other types of conflict, which some kids might be used to -- but in any case, now you know.
Bottom line, it's a fun film that stands up to repeat viewing, and if the parents approve it for their kids, it's perfect for whole-family movie nights. Hint: get ready to dance when the music rolls over the end credits! |
| Rating | | | Date | May 23, 2007 | | Summary | Shark Tale | Content
| Oscar is a fish who works in a "whale wash", like his Dad did. He wants to be a somebody, but without much money there's not much chance of that. In fact, he's in a bit of debt with the owner of the whale wash, and he ends up being tied up underwater, left to the sharks. When a shark looking to feed on him accidentally is killed by an anchor, Oscar takes the credit as a "shark slayer". Maybe he'll be a somebody then...
"Shark Tale" is pretty smoothly animated, but the plot isn't quite that engaging. Two and a half stars. |
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