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Shark Tale.
Saw Shark Tale last night. I had no plans to see it, but my friends were curious, so in we went.
I wanted to like it, because Shrek 2 had been a pleasant surprise. But frankly? About 20 minutes in, I started getting bored.
Make no mistake, the animation is quite good. Things look and move as they're supposed to; the fish look remarkably like their voice actors, so kudos to the artists for that. Some things are lovely--the transparency and movement of fins, for example. Lola's tail, in particular, with its faint suggestion of holographic sparkle, had me mesmerized.
On the other hand, I don't recall being particularly wowed by composition or color or what have you. Individual aspects of the visuals may look very good, but put them all together in an uninspired fashion and the result, no matter how intensively-rendered, still puts one in mind of the animation of the average Saturday-morning cartoon.
The script doesn't help matters much; there are only a few bright spots.
Crazy Joe the hermit crab and the two jellyfish henchmen, and sometimes Martin Scorsese's pufferfish, were the only ones that consistently--or possibly even at all--made me laugh. Elsewhere, jokes were belabored (MC Hammer?), leaned too heavily on marine puns ("Katie Current"? is that witty?), or sometimes just plain went on way too long (the whole shrimp cocktail thing). Props to the octopus tea-pouring bit, though; played in the background, it was hilarious.
Will Smith, whose movies I don't rush out to see but whom I tend to enjoy nonetheless, quickly grew tiresome here for the first time in my experience. As he's the lead character, that didn't bode well. Likewise, no-one else was particularly endearing, though I did like DeNiro's Don Lino and Jolie's Lola, in addition to the actually-humorous characters mentioned above. As for Lenny, I think they were shooting for "layered" but wound up with inconsistent (is he stupid? savvy enough to threaten blackmail? uncoordinated? coordinated enough to pull off a choreographed fight? whatever; I got tired of trying to keep track). I was surprised they chose to couch his vegetarianism in the language of coming out, a tricky thing in a kids' movie. Whatever the point of it was, I'm not sure it succeeded. It probably should have been thought-provoking, or sly and witty, or something, but all I felt was, "meh."
Actually, with visuals that do about half their job and a joke hit rate of about 5%, that pretty much sums up the entire movie.
On the bright side, the prime-time showing of Sky Captain at the same multiplex was sold out. Yeah, baby.
I wanted to like it, because Shrek 2 had been a pleasant surprise. But frankly? About 20 minutes in, I started getting bored.
Make no mistake, the animation is quite good. Things look and move as they're supposed to; the fish look remarkably like their voice actors, so kudos to the artists for that. Some things are lovely--the transparency and movement of fins, for example. Lola's tail, in particular, with its faint suggestion of holographic sparkle, had me mesmerized.
On the other hand, I don't recall being particularly wowed by composition or color or what have you. Individual aspects of the visuals may look very good, but put them all together in an uninspired fashion and the result, no matter how intensively-rendered, still puts one in mind of the animation of the average Saturday-morning cartoon.
The script doesn't help matters much; there are only a few bright spots.
Crazy Joe the hermit crab and the two jellyfish henchmen, and sometimes Martin Scorsese's pufferfish, were the only ones that consistently--or possibly even at all--made me laugh. Elsewhere, jokes were belabored (MC Hammer?), leaned too heavily on marine puns ("Katie Current"? is that witty?), or sometimes just plain went on way too long (the whole shrimp cocktail thing). Props to the octopus tea-pouring bit, though; played in the background, it was hilarious.
Will Smith, whose movies I don't rush out to see but whom I tend to enjoy nonetheless, quickly grew tiresome here for the first time in my experience. As he's the lead character, that didn't bode well. Likewise, no-one else was particularly endearing, though I did like DeNiro's Don Lino and Jolie's Lola, in addition to the actually-humorous characters mentioned above. As for Lenny, I think they were shooting for "layered" but wound up with inconsistent (is he stupid? savvy enough to threaten blackmail? uncoordinated? coordinated enough to pull off a choreographed fight? whatever; I got tired of trying to keep track). I was surprised they chose to couch his vegetarianism in the language of coming out, a tricky thing in a kids' movie. Whatever the point of it was, I'm not sure it succeeded. It probably should have been thought-provoking, or sly and witty, or something, but all I felt was, "meh."
Actually, with visuals that do about half their job and a joke hit rate of about 5%, that pretty much sums up the entire movie.
On the bright side, the prime-time showing of Sky Captain at the same multiplex was sold out. Yeah, baby.