Bastard1
Since: Nov, 2010
12/28/2017 00:00:00
The majority of these criticisms could be leveled towards most any other DW movie. Review fails to adequately explain what makes this one particularly bad, even by the metric that is their So Okay Its Average approach to filmmaking.
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What Happens When Dreamworks Gets Arrogant
Boy is this movie bad.
No, reader, I'm serious. I cannot think of a single good thing about this movie. Sure, Dreamworks has the money for the animation, but the act of pasting the faces of the actors directly onto the characters can only be taken so far before the effect is nightmarish. It should be subtle. You don't need to look at a character the moment they step on screen and say "Oh, I know which actor he's voiced by". You should look at the credits and go "Hey, they put a few of this guy's most recognisable features onto the character, that's clever."
Moving on, I can't think of anything genuinely enjoyable about Shark Tale. I mean, Will Smith is in it. He's a GOOD ACTOR. He's genuinely FUNNY. You'd think he could knock it up a notch. No! This movie is SO BAD that it manages to DRAG HIM DOWN. Even Jack Black's performance is sullied somewhat by it because nothing he does in this movie is actually FUNNY, it's just a shitton of bad Closetted jokes. I bet you didn't think those existed. Well, this movie invents some, just to make sure it's not funny at all.
Pop culture references are its primary source of humour, if you count pop culture as actual humour. When you make pop culture jokes, you need to remember that there will be people who will not get it. And you need to remember that for every pop culture joke you make, the lifespan of your movie is shortened by 30 years. I'm serious here. It's not funny. THERE ARE NO ACTUAL JOKES.
And even the main character isn't likable. You get movies where the main character is deliberately unlikable, but this is not one of these movies. It's a kid's movie and you should be rooting for Oscar. You should find yourself saying, when bad luck happens, "Poor guy can't catch a break".
But you don't, because he's a jerk. Every time he gets his commuppance you kind of cheer. When things go well for him, you find yourself a bit disappointed. At the end he seems to learn a lesson and come clean, except no, there's no evidence he really learned anything at all, and he still gets everything he ever wanted with no real consequences to all the lies he's told.
So, if you're thinking that Dreamworks is infallible and this movie will be good because they made it... you can think again.