Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
Oscar is a small fish whose big aspirations often get him into trouble. Meanwhile, Lenny is a great white shark with a surprising secret that no sea creature would guess: He's a vegetarian. When a lie turns Oscar into an improbable hero and Lenny becomes an outcast, the two form an unlikely friendship.
Shark Tale is a flashy but shallow DreamWorks animation that leans heavily on pop-culture references and celebrity voice casting. The plot is a formulaic underdog-lies-his-way-to-the-top story with little originality or emotional depth. The voice cast (Will Smith, Jack Black, Angelina Jolie) brings energy but the characters are thinly written. Visually it has some vibrant underwater design choices but lacks the cohesive artistry of its Pixar contemporaries. The vegetarian shark concept had novelty potential but is squandered in a derivative urban parody framework. The ending is predictable and tidily resolved without much earned satisfaction.