Saturday Night Premiere: Shark Tale

Saturday, September 03, 2005

Each and every Saturday night, I will review the Saturday night premiere on the cable networks. The networks seem to have deemed Saturday premiere night across the board with movies premiering on HBO, Starz and sometimes other networks.

This week's movie up for review is Shark Tale. A cartoon adventure by the makers of Shrek. This movie has a stellar voice cast that includes Will Smith, Robert De Niro, and Angelina Jolie. I had been looking forward to seeing it for a long time. So many had told me how great the movie was, and some even commented my daily blog with comments about how great the movie was after I mentioned I planned to watch it tonight.

However, I'm sad to this movie did not keep my interest. The movie tells the story of a fish named Oscar, a lowly fish that works as a tongue scrubber at the whale wash. He tells one great white lie after meeting up with veggie shark, Lenny, and it snowballs from there. By the end of the movie, we have all smiles and joy once Oscar realizes what lies are capable of, and he loses the fish of his dreams, his best friend Angie.

I think this movie was a bit predictable. I kind of knew what would happen before it happened, and the music video type ending seemed a bit over the top with cartoon appearances by Christina Aguilera and Missy Elliot, singing their cover of the 70's classic "Car Wash." I found myself distracted from the movie about half way through.

Even with the ending being less than stellar for me, I think this movie's soundtrack was excellent, and even if you don't enjoy cartoon movies, the soundtrack could stand on its own. It has a collection of songs from many of today's superstars including Justin Timberlake, Mary J. Blige, Christina Aguilera and others. This soundtrack includes both new material and covers of popular 70's songs such as "Car Wash" and "Got to be Real."

I didn't enjoy Shark Tale much, which does sadden me, but I just didn't enjoy this cartoon movie as much as I enjoyed others I've seen in the past. If you want to see a good underwater cartoon, I'd suggest my favorite, Finding Nemo.

If you would like to still check this movie out for yourself check the following retailers: Amazon, J & R or rent through Netflix.com.