Shark Tale

[kitty]

Shark Tale

One thing this movie isn't is Finding Nemo. Reviewers and critics alike have been comparing Dreamworks Animations' latest endeavour, Shark Tale, to last year's Disney Pixar blockbuster hit.

Yet, about all that Shark Tale and Finding Nemo have in common are the fish.

Shark Tale tells the story of the abysmally normal Oscar, voiced by Will Smith, a lower-middle class fish who dreams of making it big and one-day living in the penthouse at the top of the reef. Yet, he finds himself a no-name, average Joe whale-wash fish getting by in the underwater inner-city. Meanwhile, the reef is being terrorized by mobster-parodying sharks, led by mafia-boss Don Lino, played by Robert DeNiro. Jack Black is Don Lino's vegetarian (re: gay) son, and black sheep of the family, Lenny, while Renee Zelleweger voices Angie, Oscar's best friend and wannabe girlfriend.

The film, like its predecessor, Shrek, is a film that tries to expand upon the genre of animation in American Hollywood, seeking to find a marriage between entertainment for young kids and adults. Yet, while Shrek was able to amuse the older generation with its witty commentary on the very genre it seeks to distinguish itself from -- heartwarming Disney fairytales -- while simultaneously offering plenty of fart jokes and slapschtick for the kids, Shark Tale attempts to mock both mafia movies and the hip hop generation. While this approach might find more fans among adult moviegoers, Shark Tale's humour -- particularly its tongue-in-cheek parodying of stereotypical scenes from the Sopranos and the Godfather -- is most likely to go way over the heads of young kids; it's a film where the dialogue, and the endless pop culture references, is where the true humour lies. The occasional and gratuitous fart joke is, in this film, both out of place and inane.

Will Smith is here, like in many films, at his best when he plays himself, but the real surprise in Shark Tale is Jack Black, who is able to subdue his usual, aggravating, over-the-top gregariousness to lend the character of Lenny a surprising tenderness and sensitivity. The rest of Shark Tale's all-star cast is completely on-point, and Michael Imperioli is particularly delightful as Lenny's stereotypically mafioso brother, Frankie. Also worth mentioning is the soundtrack of this film which redefines the animation movie soundtrack -- the hip-hop sound of Shark Tale makes for a great, upbeat soundtrack that might be more worth your $8 than the price of admission, itself.

Already, Shark Tale's comedic caricatures of well-known genres have landed it in trouble. Italian Americans are furious at its further portrayal of Italians as gangsters, while Rastafarians might be more than a little offended by jellyfish henchmen Bernie and Ernie (voiced by Doug E. Doug and Ziggy Marley). Other instances of racialized characters stray a little too close to the boundary between humour and racist caricature, and leave the moviegoer not quite sure whether to laugh or launch a protest. The hip hop lingo, while generally improvised by Will Smith (himself, not exactly known for his "street-ness"), occasionally goes over-the-top in its effort to appropriate rap culture. Nonetheless, Shark Tale will be entertaining for the teen to twenty-something audience, if not a revolutionary box office tale for the ages.

Let's just hope DreamWorks doesn't do what the animation studios have now made an ongoing tradition, and come out with Shark Tale 2, due out Dec. 2006.

[TB4000]

Yeah, more than a few people noticed that vegetarian/gay angle in the theatre I was in. And you know if there's a Shrek 2, Shark Tale 2 will be out sooner than you think.