Originally posted 1/5/05
Shark Tale
Directors: Vicky Jensen, Bibo Bergeron, Rob Letterman
Writers: Rob Letterman, Michael J. Wilson
Producers: Bill Damaschke, Janet Healy, Allison Lyon Segan
Featuring the voices of: Will Smith, Robert De Niro, Renee Zellweger, Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Martin Scorsese
So it’s an odd quibble to make in an animated kids’ movie that there is no good reason a fish should need an elevator to get to a top floor apartment. He couldn’t swim up? But I am just picky enough to think that the reason we watch movies set in another world is to bathe our imaginations in the unfamiliar, or something which is familiar but skewed in a unique way.
In Shark Tale, a harmless, diverting, but ultimately less than memorable animated comedy, fish, sharks and other creatures of the deep wear sunglasses, listen to walkmen, make their own TV shows, and dream of owning surround sound systems. Another odd quibble would be how a surround sound system works underwater, but I’m starting to come off as too much the grump.
Maybe what I am asking is, why is this story set underwater at all? Its trappings are the trappings of the human world – the sharks sit in booths at a restaurant and eat off of plates, fish use cell phones to communicate. Most of the characters spend their time upright rather than horizontally. Why did they have to be fish?
I think the answer is that if they weren’t some kind of cute animal, you would never bring kids to this movie – after all, what 6-year-old can relate to a story about mobsters and gambling? Sure, it has bright colors, fart jokes, and the voice of Will Smith at its jiggiest. But can a kid find any way to emotionally plug into his quest to live in a penthouse and have a hot girlfriend? Will they comprehend what it means that he is in debt to a loan shark (technically a loan puffer fish, named Sykes and voiced by Martin Scorsese)?
I cannot really speak for the children, who will find something to enjoy in this all as I did. But my guess is that it doesn’t nestle itself into some special place in their memory, where they store things that swept them away and made them feel something more than just a momentary laugh.
Oscar (Smith) works a menial job as a mouth scrubber at a “whale wash”. He sees himself as destined for bigger things and as such is a sucker for get-rich-quick schemes. Surviving one long enough to whip up another takes up much of his attention, so of course he is blind to the unrequited longings of his loyal friend Angie (Renee Zellweger).
But then a bad bet at the sea horse racing track has him getting worked over by some of Sykes’ jellyfish goons (Ziggy Marley, Doug E. Doug). To make matters worse, a couple of sharks, the sons of the reef’s capo Don Lino (Robert DeNiro), show up. Good son Frankie (Michael Imperioli) is fed up with the eccentricities of his little brother Lenny (Jack Black), who is trying to be a vegetarian, and wants to set him right by enjoying a little fish stalking. And Oscar is the only fish around.
All does not go according to plan, and an accident leaves Frankie dead and the reef thinking that Oscar bested him. Long in fear of the sharks, the fish denizens dub Oscar “The Sharkslayer” and suddenly he’s got everything he ever wanted – fame, money, a hot girlfriend (the ever-changeable Lola, voiced by Angelina Jolie) and the aforementioned rooftop condo. But he’s also got a deadly enemy in the form of Don Lino.
Oscar and Lenny become friends out of mutual self-interest, and of course Angie tags along to provide some voice of conscience as Oscar’s lies form ever higher and more teetering piles beneath him. The story unfolds as you might rather expect, with sitcom-like farcical situations in the climax and sitcom-like “we learned a valuable lesson today” emotional resolution for the characters. There’s nothing particularly broken in the mechanics of the story, but that’s a long way from saying there’s anything inspired to it.
While the other offerings from Dreamworks/PDI – the Shrek movies and Antz – have offered a high level of wit and expression, this is a far more modest effort. The characters just don’t pop to life like we’ve come to expect. There is a growing trend to people animated movies with the voices of big stars; frankly I can’t imagine a six-year-old caring. The no-name David P. Smith scores more laughs than any of them as a scuttling non-sequiter named Crazy Joe.
No six-year-old is going to understand why a mobster character voiced by Robert De Niro is meant to be funny in and of itself. Live action acting and voice-over acting are two distinct arts, and I have yet to be convinced that the average movie star adds anything to an animated film. For vocally gifted performers like Eddie Murphy and Mike Myers I of course make glad exceptions. But Shark Tale is overloaded with “names”, so much so that it seems to be relying on our affection for these stars to provide the razzle-dazzle the animation and story isn’t.
But we’re not looking at the stars. We’re looking at fish. They are who we’re supposed to be relating to and embracing. And at any age, not focusing on that is a let-down.