Shark Tale

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating * * * )

Maybe we should call it the Shrek test. It goes something like this: When you think of Shrek, do you think of the big ugly green guy from the films first. Or do you think of Mike Myers behind his Scottish accent?

Alternatively Nemo's Dad, Marlon. That was Albert Brooks. You forgot? Good - you were meant to.

And that is among many of the problems of Shark Tale. You can never forget. We're meant to sit there and marvel at the stars who have supposedly inspired the DreamWorks animated feature.

Like, wow, look colourful fish version of Will, Jack, Renee, Bob, Angelina, Marty ... what will they think of next?

How about a film that has characters rather than star-powered caricatures? They are entertaining for a while.

Especially Jack as Lenny the vegetarian Great White (one of the rare undersea characters who doesn't resemble his voice, otherwise he'd be a kina, eh?), Scorsese as the puffer-fish Sykes, and a couple of Rastafarian henchmen jellyfish, one of whom is voiced by Ziggy Marley (which answers the whatever-happened-to question).

But this comes on like a movie that feels like its makers thought that after the multi-demographic research and the deals were done, the story and cinematic magic could look after itself.

There's plenty of gags - about one a scene, a veritable piranha frenzy of jokes at times. The Jaws one is funny, the first time. But after a while - especially as the film spends far too much time in the company of Smith's verbose fish alter-ego Oscar - it soon pales. Though there are plenty of laugh-out loud moments, but mainly ones peripheral to the main characters.

Oscar works at a whale version of a car wash - cue the Rose Royce tune - where he dreams of making it to the top of the reef, while co-worker Angie (Zellweger) can't bring herself to tell him how she feels about him.

Meanwhile, some nautical miles away, shark mob boss Lino (De Niro) is trying to make Lenny prove he's got what it takes, like his natural born killer of a brother Frankie (The Sopranos' Michael Imperioli).

Oscar gets into trouble with his boss Sykes and his minders, only to be unwittingly rescued by Lenny while Frankie buys it from a stray anchor. Oscar returns to the reef a hero as the "the shark slayer" while Lenny escapes his family.

It's only a matter of time before the sharks follow them to the reef ...

Technically, it's impressive enough but its undersea setting is as loud and crowded as its voice cast.

It seems aimed at our inner teenager rather than our inner child and frankly they are a whole lot harder to keep entertained.

For an animated film with so many toothy creatures its satire sure lacks bite. And for something supposedly set on the bottom of the ocean, it's really all surface.


VOICES: Will Smith, Jack Black, Renee Zellweger, Robert De Niro, Angelina Jolie, Martin Scorsese

DIRECTORS: Bibo Bergeron, Vicky Jenson, Rob Letterman

RATING: PG

RUNNING TIME: 90 mins

SCREENING: Village, Hoyts, Berkeley cinemas