The story begins with an underachieving fish named Oscar going to work and slipping up with a mistake again. With that, he is called to his boss' office to discuss the fact that he owes money and has to pay it back by the next day. As he explains to his best friend, Angie (who harbors a secret love for him), he is offered the chance to pay back the money by pawning off a pink pearl given to him by Angie, which he plans to use, but is distracted by his wishes of grandeur and places it all on a bet at the race tracks. The race is lost and Oscar is set to be surreptitiously killed, but the killing is cut short when he leaps at the chance to get fame.
Meanwhile, on another side of the ocean, a family of criminally-inclined sharks has a trouble with one of their sons, Lenny. Lenny refuses to act the part of a killer and wishes to not have to live up to those expectations. With this, his father, Don Lino, decides that he must learn to kill, by being taught by Lenny's more savage brother, Frankie.
As the two sharks set out to go in accordance with their father's wishes, Frankie spots the scene where Oscar is being electrocuted by Ernie and Bernie, his boss' two jellyfish thugs and sets Lenny off to attack. The jellyfish spot Lenny and swim off, leaving Oscar alone with him. Lenny tries to calm Oscar down by telling him that he will not eat him, but Oscar will not listen, and insists on screaming, until Frankie becomes annoyed and tries to attack, but an anchor kills him by crushing him. As no one saw the deed done and Oscar was seen near the body, everyone thought it was him, and Oscar saw the chance to both redeem himself and receive his fame.
Although Oscar desires to please everyone, he soon discovers that he pleases no one; his paramour Angie is heartbroken by the fact that Oscar is no longer honest, while her hedonistic rival Lola is disgusted by what she considers low taste. Don Lino plans revenge, and Oscar must rise to the occasion. When the trick planned by Oscar and Lenny succeeds only in angering Don Lino, Oscar lures both sharks into a trap. Given an ovation by the other fish, Oscar confesses that he is not a real "Sharkslayer". He forsakes all the wealth he has acquired, makes peace with the sharks, and marries Angie.
Despite only having 35% critical approval on rottentomatoes , it still managed to make $363.5 million worldwide.
Criticisms and Analysis
Many Italian-American organizations protested Shark Tale for perpetuating negative stereotypes of Italian-Americans. Gay groups noted Lenny's "vegetarian" shark as an obvious metaphor for coming out of the closet, and even speculate that the character Lenny could possibly be a representative of a gay man. Noteworthy in this discussion is the fact that refusing to "eat meat" could be construed as a rejection of male masculinty. A brief passing of Walter, a sperm whale voiced by Anthony Anderson triggers a few suggestive comments regarding "sperm whales", although it isn't said outright.
Roger Ebert has said that the film doesn't make sense as a children's movie, "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."[1] He also observes that younger viewers would have trouble enjoying a movie about adult characters with adult problems (elaborate love triangles and a main character wanting to clear his debt with loan sharks) and compares it to the more successful fish-focused animated feature Finding Nemo which features a simpler plot that anybody can associate, and draws humor from the lifestyle of the fish instead of transferring ethnic stereotypes onto fish as does Shark Tale.
A Little Less Conversation - Elvis remixed by Junkie XL.
Can't Wait - Avant (Damon E. Thomas; Antonio Dixon; Harvey W. Mason; Eric Dawkins; Steven Russell)
Gold Digger - Ludacris featuring Bobby V. and Lil' Fate (Alonzo Lee; Shamar Daugherty; Christopher Bridges; Bobby Wilson; Arbie Wilson)
Get It Together - India.Arie (Drew Ramsey; Shannon Sanders; India Aire Simpson; Dana Johnson; Mel Johnson)
We Went as Far as We Felt Like Going - The Pussycat Dolls (Bob Crewe; Kenny Nolan)
Digits - fan 3 (Allison Lurie; Paul Robb; David Clayton-Thomas; Fred Lipsius)
Sweet Kind of Life - Cheryl Lynn (James Harris; III & Terry Lewis; Cheryl Lynn; Bobby Ross Avila; Issiah J. Avila; Tony Tolbert; James Q. Wright)
Some of My Best Friends Are Sharks - Hans Zimmer (Hans Zimmer)
Trivia
The voice-actor for reporter Katie Current is specially chosen in each country, to be a nationally recognized news reporter. In the Australian version, Tracy Grimshaw (former co-anchor of the Australian Today Show) voices Katie. In the German version Frauke Ludowig, an anchor of RTL Television, plays the role and in the UK version, Fiona Phillips (co-anchor of GMTV) plays Katie.
The headquarters of the sharks is intended to represent the RMS Titanic. In one scene, the picture of Rose DeWitt Bukater from the film Titanic can be seen hanging on the wall, although she is clothed because of content reasons. In another scene, Don Ira Feinberg asks, "Any requests? How about that Titanic song?" This is probably a reference to the theme from Titanic, "My Heart Will Go On". During the film credits, Lenny is seen sitting on a barstool in front of a painting of the Titanic. In another reference to the Titanic at Frankie's funeral he is seen in a life ring with the words "Titanic" written on it.
After Oscar has defeated Lenny, the crowd chants "Oscar Bumaye". In the film Ali, in which Will Smith plays the leading role, the crowd chants "Ali Bumaye" during the boxing match in Zaire. (This a reference to the real-life Rumble in the Jungle in which Muhammad Ali defeated George Foreman ("Bumaye" is a Congolese word roughly translated into English as "knock 'em dead.")
While fighting the sharks, Oscar quotes lines from the films Gladiator (Are you not entertained?), A Few Good Men (You can't handle the truth!) and Jerry Maguire (You had me at hello!) After the fight he says "yippee-ki-yay" from the movie "Die Hard."
When Oscar yelled "You had me at hello!" on TV, Renee Zellweger's character Angie is seen to smile. It was the same line Zellweger uttered in Jerry Maguire.
The characters' looks were based off of the actual actors who provided the voices of their character.
Oscar was a mix of purple, yellow, and green: a nod to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Logo which starred actor Will Smith.
While Frankie is dying, Lenny tells Frankie that the reason he feels cold is because he is cold-blooded which is why Frankie slaps him with his last strength and calls him a "moron" with his dying breath. In actual fact, Great White Sharks are one of four warm-blooded species of shark.
When Oscar tries to avoid being taken to Sykes' office in the Whale Wash by Sykes' henchmen, the rastafarian jellyfish Bernie and Ernie, he sings a hip-hop version of "Three Little Birds" by Bob Marley. At that point Ernie zaps him and says, "That's not how you sing the song, man." Ernie is voiced by Marley's son Ziggy Marley who coincidentally does an updated version of the song on the soundtrack with Sean Paul.
The film is notable for its unique approach of representing the typical human lifestyle and associated pop cultures in an underwater environment. The film crew refer to this style as 'Fishification'. Examples of 'fishified' products in the film include "Coral Cola", "Gup", "`O`Mints, ""Kelpy Kreme, and "Fish King". All these "products" required permission from the companies to make the logo look similar to the actual logo.
At the horse racing scene where Oscar mistakingly hits on Mrs. Sanchez, the back of Mrs. Sanchez's newspaper advertises a film called 'The Hook' which has a logo which looks similar to the film The Ring (also from DreamWorks).
This movie originally was going to be released in November 2004 (the first target date was July 2004).
When a preview disc for Shrek 2 came out, this movie was titled as, "Sharkslayer".
The film makes references to mafia movies like The Godfather (when Oscar says, "Why? Is he like the Godfather or something?" to which Lenny replies, "Yeah.") and Scarface (when the shrimp says to Don Lino, "Say hello to my little friends!") However, in Scarface, Tony Montana says "friend," instead of "friends."
Many people believed this film somewhat plagiarized elements from Disney'sFinding Nemo, it was then disproven when the film was released.
The character Crazy Joe presumably watches the Benny Hill Show, as indicated by the music coming from his shell as he watches his show.
The shark mob's hideout which is supposedly the Titanic, is situated on an underwater cliff. In reality, the Titanic is on a flat part of the ocean floor.
During Frankie's funeral, Frankie is dumped overboard the shipwreck and begins to float up to the surface. In reality, sharks do not have air sacs like other fish, therefore they do not float belly up when they die.
There are similarities between Lola the Dragonfish and Jessica Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
A news reporter toward the beginning of the movie reports the traffic on Interreef 95, obviously the underwater take on Interstate 95.
In the English version of the film, the two jellyfish Ernie and Bernie had traditional Jamaican accents. In the Spanish feed of this film, the two were given Mexican accents.
The Opening title of the movie begins with DreamWorks Animation Presente when it should have said DreamWorks Animation Presents, which they pass off as a joke by placing a worm on a hook to look like an "s".
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