#51 - Shark Tale

It's finally happened. The day that I knew would be here has come. What I am speaking of is the day when full length CGI animated features hit the wall. When I first saw Toy Story I was amazed at how good it was. Ever since then I have been shocked that the quality of these films has remained at such a high level. From what I have seen, Pixar would have to work hard to NOT make a good movie. And Dreamworks has done well with their own. Antz wasn't bad, and of course there are the Shrek's. But in the back of my mind I knew that the people making these movies would run out of magic fairy dust and hit the wall. This movie is the wall.

Let me start off by saying that the animation of this movie did not hit the wall. It is top notch and is probably the best part of the whole thing. Where this movie falls short is in the writing department, the same department that was the strong point for all of the CGI toons that I have prior to this. The problem with the writing is that it heavily relies on two major aspects to carry the movie, both of which aren't that great. The first, and most important, is the performance of Will Smith. I know he has made a career on being a fast talking, smooth talking ne'er do well, but but there was so much of it in this movie that it wore out its welcome way too quick. And it never let up. From start to finish it was blabbity blabbity, a million miles a minute, non stop jabbering, and I just wanted him to shut up.

The second aspect of the writing that was annoying was the excessive use of taking common items or scenarios in the human world and transfering them into the fish world. What followed was a movie long series of play on words after play on words and bad fish puns. It was just too much. In the Shrek movies they only really did it when he was out of the woods or the swamp. In Shark Tale it was constantly happening and lost its amusement value around the same time Will Smith did. After that everything else was standard movie stuff, the best firend fish is in love with the main character fish, the super hot fish only loves him cause he is popular, the evil Italian shark mobster with the gay son, you know, all the usual stuff. Which means that all of the interesting writing I had come to expect in these movies was not there. The Rasta jellyfish were pretty funny, even if stoned out rasta's wouldn't make good mobster goons.

Unrelated side note: Is anyone else irritated at the WB's use of the word "fresh" as a substitution for the word "new"? It just reeks of middle aged marketing guys trying too hard to connect with a younger audience. Hopefully it stops with the creation of the CW(UPN + WB = CW????), but let's be honest, I rarely watched either one anyways, and I'm probably not gonna watch this one either.