Shark Tale is a 2004 American computer-animated comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation, directed by Vicky Jenson, Bibo Bergeron and Rob Letterman. The film features an ensemble cast Will Smith, Robert De Niro, Renée Zellweger, Angelina Jolie, Jack Black, and Martin Scorsese. It tells the story of a young fish named Oscar (Smith) who falsely claims to have killed the son of a shark mob boss (De Niro) to win favor with the mob boss' enemies and advance his own community standing.
Despite the film's mixed reviews, Shark Tale proved to be a box office success, opening at #1 with $47.6 million, which was the second highest opening for a DreamWorks Animation film at the time, behind Shrek 2 ($108 million). It remained as the #1 film in the U.S. and Canada for its second and third weekends, and made $367 million worldwide against its $75 million budget. It was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
"Plot">Plot
In Reef City, an underachieving bluestreak cleaner wrasse named Oscar fantasizes about being rich and famous while making his way to work as a tongue scrubber at the local Whale Wash, a job in which he is following in his father's footsteps. Soon after arriving he is called to the office of his boss, a pufferfish named Sykes, to discuss the fact that he owes "five thousand clams" and has to pay it back by the next day. After explaining this to his angelfish best friend Angie, she offers him a chance to pay back the money by pawning a pink pearl that was a gift from her grandmother. Oscar brings the money to the race track to meet Sykes, but becomes distracted by his dreams of grandeur. Upon hearing that the race is rigged, places it all on a long-shot bet by the name of "Lucky Day". Such a million dollar bet is noticed nearby by a beautiful lionfish named Lola, who flagrantly seduces an excited Oscar, but Oscar is disappointed when she leaves upon learning that he is a whale washer. Sykes is furious that Oscar bet the money but nonetheless agrees to see how the race turns out. Moments before their "horse" "Lucky Day" crosses the finish line, he trips and falls on the line. The race is lost and Oscar is set to be punished in a secluded area for his impulsiveness.
Meanwhile on another side of the ocean in the wreck of the RMS Titanic, a family of criminally-inclined great white sharks has a problem with one of their sons Lenny who is a vegetarian. Lenny refuses to act the part of a killer and wishes to not have to live up to those expectations. His crime lord father Don Lino orders Lenny's more savage big brother Frankie to tutor Lenny in the family business. After the two sharks depart their father, Frankie sees Oscar being electrocuted by Sykes' two jellyfish enforcers Ernie and Bernie and sends Lenny off to attack. The jellyfish spot Lenny and flee leaving Oscar alone with him. Instead of attacking Oscar, Lenny frees him upsetting Frankie who becomes annoyed and charges at Oscar. Frankie is killed however when an anchor falls on him. Lenny flees, overcome with grief and guilt. As no other witnesses were present and Oscar was seen near the body, everyone comes to believe that he killed Frankie, an opportunity that Oscar decides to exploit for fame.
Oscar returns to the city with a new title of the Sharkslayer. Sykes becomes his manager, Lola becomes his girlfriend, and Oscar moves to the "top of the reef" to live in luxury. At the same time, Don Lino has everyone out looking for Lenny. When several sharks get close to Oscar's neighborhood, Oscar's neighbors expect him to drive them away. When Oscar runs into Lenny, Lenny (who does not wish to return home) forces Oscar to let him stay with him since he is aware of Oscar's lie. Soon, Angie finds out about the lie and threatens to tell everyone. Oscar and Lenny convince her to keep quiet, though she is heartbroken by Oscar's dishonesty. Oscar's situation is not helped by the shallow Lola, who indicates to him that her interest in him extends only as far as he remains famous. With Don Lino planning revenge, Oscar and Lenny stage an event in which Lenny pretends to terrorize the town and Oscar must defeat him throwing him into the depths of the ocean. Though this further cements Oscar as the Sharkslayer, it greatly angers Don Lino. Oscar leaves Lola for Angie after Angie reveals that she had feelings for Oscar even before he became famous, but this leaves the rebuffed Lola determined to get revenge.
Oscar buys some Valentine's Day gifts for Angie, but before he can present them to her, he finds that Don Lino has kidnapped Angie to force a sit-down. Lenny comes along now disguised as a dolphin named Sebastian. They arrive at the meeting to find Lola next to Don Lino, while Angie is tied up and gagged and presented to Don Lino on a plate who prepares to eat her if Oscar does not comply. Lenny grabs Angie into his mouth, but later regurgitates her. When Don Lino realizes that "Sebastian" is really Lenny, he chases Oscar through the reef. Oscar heads for the Whale Wash and ends up trapping both sharks. He is given an ovation by the other fish, but Oscar confesses that he is not a "Sharkslayer" and that it was a falling anchor that killed Frankie. He then tells Don Lino that everyone likes Lenny for who he is strongly urging him not to prejudge people before he knows them properly and to not make the mistake he made in prejudging his wealth. Realizing that Oscar is right, Don Lino apologizes to Lenny and reconciles with him while making peace with Oscar, stating that he and his gang bear him no ill will. Oscar forsakes all the wealth he has acquired, makes peace with the sharks, becomes co-manager of the Whale Wash (now frequented by sharks, killer whales, and swordfish), and starts dating Angie and enjoys a happy, honest life.
During the credits, Lola trying to find Oscar in the "top of the reef" wanting to make amends with him for what she did. All she finds is a hermit crab named Crazy Joe, one of Oscar's friends, waiting for her.
Cast
- Will Smith as Oscar, an underachieving bluestreak cleaner wrasse worker in the Whale Wash of Reef City. He wants to be rich, but his schemes always fail and he owes 5,000 clams to Mr. Sykes.
- Jack Black as Lenny, a great white shark who is a closeted vegetarian.
- Robert De Niro as Don Lino, a great white shark who is Lenny and Frankie's father and the leader of a mob of criminally-inclined sharks. He wants Lenny and Frankie to take over the business and run it together and is infuriated when Oscar gets in the way following Frankie's death.
- Renée Zellweger as Angie, an angelfish, Oscar's best friend, and co-worker. Angie harbors a secret unrequited love for Oscar.
- Angelina Jolie as Lola, a seductive female gold-digger lionfish whom Oscar develops a romantic interest in.
- Martin Scorsese as Sykes, the pufferfish owner of the Whale Wash and a loan shark to whom Oscar owes five thousand clams. He once worked for Don Lino, but was thrown out and called in his debts to pay off the gangster.
- Ziggy Marley and Doug E. Doug as Ernie and Bernie, two Jamaican jellyfish who work as Mr. Sykes' enforcers. They enjoy jabbing Oscar with their vicious stingers when he is in trouble with Sykes.
- Michael Imperioli as Frankie, a great white shark who is Lenny's brother and the more savage son of Lino. Like Lino, he is embarrassed by Lenny's vegetarian tendencies. He is killed by an anchor that falls on him.
- Vincent Pastore as Luca, Don Lino's "left-hand, right-hand man." Luca is a green octopus with a tendency to state the obvious much to the annoyance of Don Lino.
- Peter Falk as Don Ira Feinberg, an elderly leopard shark and leader of a mob of criminally-inclined leopard sharks who is a friend of Don Lino. He performs karaoke (badly) at the sharks' headquarters.
- Katie Couric as Katie Current, the local reporter of Reef City in the U.S. release. At the time, Katie Couric hosted Today in America. In the Australian release, then local Today co-host Tracy Grimshaw dubbed the lines. Fiona Phillips of the UK's GMTV performed the voice for the British release of the film. Cristina Parodi of Italy's Verissimo provided the Italian version of the character.
- David P. Smith as Crazy Joe, a deranged hermit crab who is Oscar's other friend. He normally lives in a dumpster near the Whale Wash.
Production
The film was originally developed under the title of Sharkslayer, but a year before its release it was retitled Shark Tale to make it less violent and more family friendly. Bill Damaschke, the producer of the film, explained the change of the title: "We set out to make a movie a little more noir, perhaps a little darker than where we've landed."
The film was produced concurrently with Finding Nemo, another animated film set underwater, which was released a year and a half before Shark Tale. DreamWorks Animation's CEO, Jeffrey Katzenberg, defended the film, saying that "any similarities are mere coincidence. We've been open with the Pixar people so we don't step on each other's toes."
Release
Shark Tale had its worldwide premiere on September 10, 2004 in Piazza San Marco in Venice, Italy. Screening as part of the Venice Film Festival, it marked the first time that Piazza San Marco was closed for a premiere of a major feature film. The film was projected on the largest inflatable screen in the world, measuring more than six stories tall and over 3,900 square feet (360Â m2). It required 20,000 cubic feet (570Â m3) of air to inflate and more than 50 tons of water for stabilization. The premiere was attended by 6,000 visitors, including Will Smith, Angelina Jolie, Robert De Niro and Michael Imperioli. Jeffrey Katzenberg, the executive producer of the film, explained that they "wanted to find a unique way to introduce this movie to the world. We needed a big idea. ... More than anything, we are in showbusiness. This is the show part."
Box office
Shark Tale opened at #1 with $47.6 million, which was, at the time, the second highest opening for a DreamWorks Animation film behind Shrek 2 ($108 million). It remained as the #1 film in the U.S. and Canada for its second and third weekends.
Overall, the movie grossed $160,861,908 in North America and $206,413,111 internationally, bringing its worldwide total to $367,275,019.
Critical reception
The film holds a 35% "Rotten" rating at the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus: "Derivative and full of pop culture in-jokes." On another review aggregator, Metacritic, the film holds an 48 out of 100 rating or "mixed or average reviews."
John Mancini, the founder of the Italic Institute of America, protested Shark Tale for perpetuating negative stereotypes of Italian-Americans.
The American Family Association, a Christian conservative organization, raised concerns about Shark Tale, suggesting that it was designed to promote the acceptance of gay rights by children. Primarily by having Lenny the Shark who is a vegetarian shark and his struggles as an allegory for the struggles gay men go through with their homosexuality.
Roger Ebert gave Shark Tale two out of four stars, observing, "Since the target audience for Shark Tale is presumably kids and younger teenagers, how many of them have seen the R-rated Godfather and will get all the inside jokes? Not a few, I suppose, and some of its characters and dialogue have passed into common knowledge. But it's strange that a kid-oriented film would be based on parody of a 1972 gangster movie for adults." He also opined that younger viewers would have trouble enjoying a film about adult characters with adult problems, such as an elaborate love triangle and a main character wanting to clear his debt with loan sharks, and compared it to more successful fish-focused animated features like Pixar's Finding Nemo, which Ebert felt featured a simpler plot that audiences could more easily identify with.
However, Richard Roeper commented that although the film wasn't on the same level as Finding Nemo, it was definitely a film worth seeing.
Home media
Shark Tale was released on DVD and VHS on February 8, 2005, accompanied with a DVD exclusive animated short film Club Oscar. The three and a half minute short film continues where the main film ends, showing the characters of Shark Tale dancing at the whale wash to a spoof of Saturday Night Fever. It was also released on Game Boy Advance Video in October 2005.
Accolades
Soundtrack
Shark Tale: Motion Picture Soundtrack was released on September 21, 2004. The soundtrack features newly recorded music by various artists, including Justin Timberlake with Timbaland, Christina Aguilera, JoJo, Ludacris, Mary J. Blige, and Will Smith, and also features the first song recorded by pop group The Pussycat Dolls as well as the film's closing theme composed by Hans Zimmer.
Janet Jackson and Beyoncé initially planned to record a duet for the film's soundtrack. Jackson's frequent collaborator Jimmy Jam, who had recently worked with Beyoncé for The Fighting Temptations soundtrack, commented "Obviously we'd love to have the involvement of Janet and Beyonce, who we just worked with on Fighting Temptations. They've already expressed interest", adding "There are a lot of opportunities with an animated piece to work with some different people." Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks' Animations, had appointed Jackson's producers Jam & Lewis to be involved with the soundtrack, though the duo only ended up producing only one song for the film, with Jam saying "We worked for DreamWorks before on the Bryan Adams song for Spirit and the Boyz II Men tune for Prince of Egypt, and Katzenberg is a fan of what we do. He thought we would be perfect to do the music for Shark Tale."
Charts
Video game
A video game based on the film was released on September 27, 2004 for Microsoft Windows, Xbox, GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Game Boy Advance.
Cancelled Sequel
In April 2011, DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg commented that the studio did not have plans to produce future movie genre parodies like Shark Tale, Monsters vs. Aliens, and Megamind, saying that these films "all shared an approach and tone and idea of parody, and did not travel well internationally. We don't have anything like that coming on our schedule now."
See also
- List of animated feature films
- List of computer-animated films
References
External links
- Official website archived from the original on October 1, 2004
- Shark Tale at the Internet Movie Database
- Shark Tale at the Big Cartoon DataBase
- Shark Tale at AllMovie
- Shark Tale at Rotten Tomatoes
- Shark Tale at Metacritic
- Shark Tale at Box Office Mojo