Review of Shark Tale (2004) by Movielonely94 — 10 Jun 2011

This CGI movie from Dreamworks Animation tells the story about Oscar, a fish who is tired of being called a "nobody", dreams of something big. One day, when he gets chased by a shark, an anchor kills it and Oscar tells a white lie in which it makes him a famous killer known as the "sharkslayer. He meets Lenny, a shark who turns out to be a vegetarian and ran away from his father Don Lino and realizes that his false claim has serious consequences as he tries to sort out the whole problem by telling the truth.

I caught a screening of this in theaters the same year it came out and I really enjoyed it, but a few years later, I've finally realized that this movie didn't turn out quite well.

The first problem I had with this movie was the moral lesson. In the ending scene where Oscar finally admits that he lied, he gets the money he had transferred to the Whale Wash where he now works as a manager. Is that what you want to teach your kids? That if you tell the truth, you will get what you want? I'm sorry, but that was very inexcusable.

Another problem that I had with this movie was the characters. They weren't even developed and were not that likable. At most of the scenes, they were very annoying and their personalities were too predictable.

I will give Dreamworks Animation credit for the CGI animation and art design plus the voice acting and music score included, but most of the time they were overshadowed by a poorly written storyline, bad jokes and puns, overused clichés from other CGI movies, and the villain voiced by Robert De Niro wasn't even threatening or diabolical.

Dreamworks, I love you, but if everyone has to pick at least one CGI movie that was bad, then frankly, this was it. Even though I loved it as a child, I seemed to hate it. It's watchable for the kids, but for the adults, however, it's not even entertaining.

I also really hated the fact that this clichéd, unfunny CGI movie made so much money and became the highest grossing animated movies of 2004 (which Shrek 2 and The Incredibles held their own ranks.) because there was no way any bad CGI movie like this could make that amount of cash.

Overall, it isn't the worst CGI movie yet, but I think I've seen the worst parts in this movie and I've seen better Dreamworks animation movies than this. Sorry, Dreamworks, but this one deserves a good punch in the face.