This being aimed squarely at children, it puzzles me that the filmmakers would want to pay heavy homage to an R rated film their target audience would not have seen? Maybe they wanted to appease the adults that would be taking their children to the movie, but the humor falls flat, as do the rest of the pop culture reference that appear throughout.Īs for the animation, it is definitely apparent that DreamWorks put all its best animation efforts into its other 2004 release, Shrek 2. Every aspect of the film that involves the sharks is meant to be a parody of The Godfather, complete with De Niro’s casting as the mob boss. The plot is equally annoying, on top of being misguided. He’s far from a likable protagonist, and I was annoyed every second he was on-screen. Sure, Oscar learns his lesson in the end, but only when it becomes perilous for him to continue lying any longer. He also pays no attention to Angie as soon as he catches the attention of a gold-digging socialite named Lola (Angelina Jolie, whom the fish is uncomfortably modeled after). Then he lies about slaying a shark so he can benefit from the fame it gets him. At one point he bets on a racehorse with the money give him by Angie after selling a prized keepsake.
Worst of all is Oscar, whose sole purpose in the movie is to become rich and famous. Complicating things, Lino’s other son Lenny (Jack Black), is a vegetarian shark who befriends Oscar after running away from home. Oscar lies and takes credit for the accidental death of Lino’s son Frankie (Michael Imperioli) by hand of an anchor, and uses his newfound popularity to live the high life.
When Oscar fails to repay his debts to his boss Sykes (played, unfortunately, by Martin Scorsese), he is sent out to be eaten by the sharks that plague the area, led by Don Lino (Robert De Niro).
Shark Tale revolves around a fish named Oscar (Will Smith), who works in a whale wash in a reef that uncomfortably resembles Times Square in New York City, complete with billboards full of fish puns (Coral Cola, Old Wavy, etc.). Although the film was certainly a financial success ($300 million+ worldwide), its critical reception was more on the…shall we say…negative side. But there it is: the Oscar-nominated feature film… Shark Tale. It certainly threw me for a loop when I discovered this, and it took me a few minutes to make sure I was reading the list correctly. Who could forget the joy when the Academy nominated Shaun the Sheep Movie in 2015, or the utter shock when they excluded Tangled in 2010? However, no Animated Feature announcement left industry insiders scratching their heads like when the 2004 nominees were The Incredibles, Shrek 2, and… Shark Tale? Every year when Oscar nominations are announced, there are bound to be some serious snubs and surprises-especially in the Animated Feature category.