Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Well, looks like Dreamworks is confident enough in SHARK’S TALE to roll it out at not one, but two major festivals at once. Our first review is from the Toronto premiere:
Hey Harry Dark Vengeance here. Just got back from the North American premier of Shark Tale at the Toronto International Film Festival. All in all this film was pretty good, but it is not on the same caliber as Shrek, or Shrek 2. For that matter I found Finding Nemo is the better CGI fish movie. That being said the movie is fun, and entertaining. The kids will more then likely enjoy this film.
Like the Shrek films, this movie is made for kids but has jokes that only adults will find funny and enjoy. Where Finding Nemo made you believe that you were in the ocean, Shark Tale fails to provide that illusion. The story was good except it was predictable. This is a story about reaching for your dreams, however realizing that you were happier with what you had in the end.
As for the characters and voices, many of them were really well done. The main character of Oscar (Will Smith) dreams of a better life, and confides in Angie (Renee Zellweger). Oscar works at a whale wash, like his father did. His boss (Martin Scorcesese) works for the Don Sykes (Robert De Niro). Sykes hopes to pass on the family business to his sons Lenni (Jack Black) and Francis (Michael Imperiori). Lenni however is a vegetarian, and hence a family failure. Evntually Lenni and Oscar cross paths after Francis is killed by an anchor. The only problem is everyone thinks Oscar killed the shark (which earns him lots of fame and fortune), and Lenni wants to disappear. Coming up with a plan, Oscar desides to hide Lenni, and will inevitably “slay” him to prove once and for all he is an almighty Shark-slayer. His fame, but above all fortune, comes to the attention of Lola (Angelina Jolie), who is more in love with the money then the fish. Not to ruin the movie, but the story follows traditional storylines which have been seen before. There were no new surprises.
Shark Tale is by all means a good movie, and worth a look. I do however believe that it will not be as successful as Shrek or Finding Nemo.
Thanks. Our next report is from Venice:
Hi Harry-Long time reader, first time scooper.
I just got back from a vacation in Italy and was catching up on my site-news, when I realized I might have some interesting info, as I attended the World Premiere of Shark Tale in Venice on Friday. For this event, the entire Piazzo San Marco, the main "touristy" historical area, was filled with scaffolding, guady banners, and the like in preparation for this event for our entire stay. This was at first annoying, but as the premiere approached I became more and more enticed with the notion of being in the same space as De Niro.
On the night of the event, we managed to scalp some tix for 20$ a piece (italian scalpers are much more subtle, you have to almost profile them). We got there late and were thus at the back and had to watch the stars arrival on the big screen. However, just being there was a thrill (plus you got free shark tale fin hats!) As the stars were announced, De Niro, Angelina Jolie, and Michael Imperioli gave a brief and humble Grazzi (thanks) to the crowd-De Niro received quite an ovation. Will Smith, when announced, launched into a rap-I'm no Will Smith hater-his prescence in a movie neither entices me to see it nor keeps me away-but for a moment, I was embarrased to be an american. However, this "performance", as an introduction to the movie, made much more sense after seing the film, in which he essentially is playing his "fresh prince" character from the 80's, a lovable wanna be rapper with important life lessons to learn (at least I think that's what the show was about, I can't say I was a regular watcher).
The movie itself was essentially quite enjoyable. As would be expected from a Dreamworks production, the animation was top-notch, certainly on par with anything I've seen recently. The story was basic-a likable "clown" becomes famous for something he didn't do (in this case kill a shark) and takes advantage of his new found celebrity, all the while forgetting what's important, like who cares about him for who he is, etc. His character, if predictably written was entertaining .Rene Zellweger gives a solid performance as the girl (or fish) with the heart of gold, as does Angelina Jolie as the money grubbing celebrity hound. As for the sharks, De Niro is quite solid as the "mob boss" playing much the same character he has in recent parodies of his archetypal gangster persona. Jack Black, along with Smith, is the other lead-his voice performance was not what I had expected, not a "straight" reading where he is easily identifiable. In fact, I wasn't 100% sure he was playing the "vegetarian" shark until the credits. This actually worked well, because I wasn't thinking of him as Jack Black but as the character, whom was a lot of fun.
The big surprise was Martin Scorcese-I expected his character to have a cameo, but his part is actually an important supporting character, whom in my opinion stole the show. His "blowfish" resembled him physically, which was a riot. I won't go into details of the plot-it wasn't anything I hadn't seen before-Smith's character learns that it's okay to be a "regular guy", Black's succeeds in finding acceptance even though he's "different", and De Niro learns to love his son even though he's not what he was hoping for. The journey through this typical life lesson is entertaining though, with several big laughs. It has enough cuteness to be appealing to kids and plenty of "in-jokes" and adult humor (I won't spoil the movie references ) to appeal to adults. I would be surprised if it becomes a phenomonen like Shrek 2 or Finding Nemo, but it should appeal enough to everyone to be a solid hit-I would give it a B/B+
hope this is helpful-Bobby Fate
Our last report is actually about two films seen at Toronto, both having something to do with fish:
Hey Harry,
I've had a nautical two days here in Toronto. Last night I saw A Whale of a Tale, a new documentary by Peter Lynch. In the late 1980s, a whale bone was dug up in downtown Toronto by a construction crew working near the lakeshore. After the initial flurry of curiosity it generated, the bone was proved to be just a couple hundred years old instead of something more earth-shattering, so the story faded away.
Peter Lynch developed an obsession over finding out where it came from and made a documentary. The film starts with a basic investigation to uncover facts about the bone, then Lynch begins to extrapolate and develop wider theories about mankind. Overall, the film was really boring. The interviews with obsessive whale bone collectors and the interlude into the world of sideshows (one theory was that the bone was tossed away by a travelling sideshow) were sort of interesting, but I just wanted it to end. I've never seen so many dead, rotting whales in my life (and would prefer not to see anymore), and Lynch kept taking shots of the bone (he had a replica made for himself) in various locations, sort of like those people who take photos of garden gnomes at landmarks.
Today I saw Shark Tale. The story is simple - fish makes mistakes, shark makes mistakes, everyone does silly things then in the end everything gets better; everyone learns their lessons and gets rewarded for doing the right thing, etc. There were a lot of pop culture references throughout, including a final cameo by Christina Aguilera and Missy Elliot. A lot of people seem pretty against this movie, but I didn't think it was that bad. I thought it was kinda funny how the fish faces were made to resemble the actors voicing them. And except for the fact that both movies feature fish, Shark Tale has nothing to do with Finding Nemo - although Nemo's definitely a better movie. Shark Tale was pretty funny; the audience was laughing throughout, especially at Lenny's "makeover". It's not a great movie, and it's not going to become a classic, but it's definitely not bad.
~ Buttercup
Well, okay, so a whale’s not a fish. Sue me. Thanks for the reports, everyone. Nice work.
"Moriarty" out.
