Shark Tale movie review & film summary (2004)
The movie is the latest production of DreamWorks Animation, co-directed by Vicky Jenson ("Shrek"), Bibo Bergeron ("The Road To El Dorado") and Rob Letterman. It takes place on an underwater reef where sharks are the local gangsters, and run things from their headquarters on the hulk of the Titanic. Coral formations, undersea debris and vegetation combine to create an aquatic Times Square, and, as in "Shrek 2," real retailers have their Toon equivalents.
The movie doesn't follow the plot of "The Godfather" so much as recycle its characters, and the "Jaws" inspiration gets an early smile when the famous theme music, scary for people, is as inspiring to sharks as the national anthem. The story's hero is Oscar (voice by Will Smith), who works down at the Whale Wash. It's a mob front, run by Sykes (voice by Martin Scorsese), a puffer fish who has extraordinary eyebrows, for a fish. Oscar is deep in debt to Sykes, who assigns a couple of Rastafarian enforcers (Ziggy Marley and Doug E. Doug) to take him on a trip and teach him a lesson he'll never forget.
The mob is ruled by Don Lino (voice by Robert De Niro, channeling Marlon Brando), who is a ruthless but, by his own standards, a fair shark. His two sons are Frankie (Michael Imperioli), who has grown up to be a shark any dad can be proud of, and Lenny (Jack Black), who has disgraced the family by becoming a vegetarian. Lenny could found a reef chapter of PETA (Predators for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) on the basis of his activist intervention one night at dinner, when he sets a shrimp cocktail free.
Don Lino is fed up with Lenny, and orders Frankie to take the lad on a swimabout and teach him the life lessons of sharkhood. As luck would have it, they cross paths with Oscar and the enforcers, and when a ship's falling anchor kills Frankie, Oscar gets the credit. Since the reef lives in terror of the sharks, this makes him a local hero, and creates romantic suspense: Will he remain faithful to his long-time girlfriend Angie (Renee Zellweger), or be seduced by the charms of the local finne fatale, Lola (Angelina Jolie)? Reporting on all of this is the local anchorwoman, Katie Current, played by Katie Couric.
