Shark Tale

Review

Shark Tale is funny, technologically brilliant and full of attractive, smart-talking, recognisable characters. The underlying message isn‘t too saccharine either, and works for the most part, for both kids and adults.

One of the most attractive attributes of Shark Tale is that the fishy characters all have the caricatured features of the actors giving them voice.

Will Smith’s elegant little cleaner-fish Oscar has his wide grin and pseudo-innocent eyes, angel-fish Angie narrows her eyes exactly as Renée Zellweger does especially when she’s mad, and the godfather shark Don Lino played by Robert De Niro has his mole. Lola, the part lion-fish, part dragon-fish played by Angelina Jolie, is mesmerisingly seductive, with her lips and her moves. Awesome too are the two Rastafarian jellyfish played by Doug E. Doug and Ziggy Marley.

Shark Tale is a tour de force, where some weakness of plot is counterbalanced by technical virtuosity, top name stars, superb characterisation and voicing combined with popular cultural musical icons. Spreading nets even wider to garner local appeal, (although there's the risk of a jarring note) the character of anchorfish Katie Current is voiced by different actual, noted news announcers depending on where it is released - Katie Couric in the US, Tracey Grimshaw in Australia and Fiona Phillips in the UK. A movie assured of a big catch.

Still not as funny as Nemo....