HOME
Archives: A - E    F - N    O - Z     StarTalk Interviews     Message Boards      

Amazon Honor System Click Here to Pay Learn More


Your Donations feed us

buy Cranky gear!
Buy Cranky stuff
Click Here to Pay Learn More

    BLU-RAY DVDs:
10,000 BC
Batman Begins
Blade Runner
Cars
Enchanted
Fifth Element
Hellboy
Chronicles of Narnia
I Am Legend
Ice Age
Independence Day
I, Robot
Iron Man
Juno

Men in Black
National Treasure
National Treasure 2
No Country for Old Men
Pirates: Dead Man's Chest
Pirates: At World's End
Rambo box set
Ratatouille
Spiderwick Chronicles
Sleeping Beauty
Terminator
Terminator 2
300
V for Vendetta

Buy Movie collectibles
TV/Movie Collectibles

Click here for your favorite eBay items


online movie critics

Privacy Policy

Labelled with ICRA
We're Kidlet Safe

Search engine
by FreeFind
Click to add search to YOUR web site!
click to search site

  Now in Release:

August
The Band's Visit
Boy A
Brideshead Revisited
CSNY Deja Vu
Dark Knight, the
Definitely Maybe
the Doorman
Fly Me to the Moon
Get Smart
Hancock
The Happening
Hellboy 2 Golden Army
Incredible Hulk
Iron Man
Journey Center of Earth
Kabluey
Kit Kittredge:
   An American Girl
Kung Fu Panda
Love Guru
Mamma Mia!
Meet Dave
Mummy: Dragon Emperor
Nim's Island
Righteous Kill
Sisterhood of... Pants 2
Space Chimps
Step Brothers
The Strangers
Swing Vote
U2 3D
Wanted
War, Inc.
What Happens in Vegas
X-Files

Find Movie Posters at MovieGoods.com

Click here to buy posters!
Buy movie posters!

    DVDs on Sale:
300
10,000 B.C.
Alice in Wonderland
Batman Begins
Bambi
Beauty and the Beast
Blade Runner
Cinderella
E.T.
Forrest Gump
Gone With the Wind
Harry Potter yrs 1-3 set
Harry Potter Azkaban
Alfred Hitchcock set
In Bruges
Indiana Jones trilogy
The Lion King
Lord of Rings 12 discs
Mary Poppins 40th LE
Marx Bros set
Ultimate Matrix set

Monty Python - Grail
Shrek Trilogy
Sin City
Sleeping Beauty
South Park Movie
Spider-Man Trilogy
Spiderwick Chronicles
Star Wars Ep. 1
Star Wars Ep. 2
Star Wars Ep. 3
Star Wars Trilogy (4-6)

X-Men Trilogy

Looney Toons Golden Age
Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3dvd
Volume 4
Volume 5
Rocky & Bullwinkle
Season 1
Season 2
Season 3
Popeye the Sailor
v.1  1933 - 1938
v.2  1938 - 1940
75th anniversary coll.ed.

Star Trek TOS
Star Trek TNGdvd
Star Trek Films

Criterion Collections


Click for full sized poster

Buy the Poster

Shark Tale

Starring Will Smith, Robert De Niro, Renee Zellweger and Angelina Jolie
Screenplay by Rob Letterman
Directed by Letterman, Vicky Jenson and Bibo Bergeron
website: www.sharktale.com

IN SHORT: A kidlet friendly mob tale? Gehddoudaheah. Better yet, don't. [Rated PG for some mild language and crude humor. 90 minutes]

Based more on the 1970s comedy Car Wash than any film school friendly mob movie, this year's Shark Tale must be good eatin' because it was the third film screened in one day by your idiot critic, and one seen less than an hour after such a debilitating piece of cinematic garbage that we are affording ourselves the luxury of pretending we didn't see it (so we don't have to write it up). That being said, even carrying two shoulders dripping with exhaustion into a big screen theater jammed with families for the sneak, we still got a pair of belly laughs and more than enough chuckles to take the pain away.

That, friends, is why we pay attention to the audience. Shark Tale had the kidlets cackling at stuff we don't begin to understand. It also has more than enough gags that will fly over the heads of the kids, on an intellectual level, even as the selfsame kidlets laugh at jokes built into the animation design. We're going to do our best to avoid giving away the biggest of those jokes as we work through the description. OK, deep breath now and . . . dive!

Starting at the aforementioned tributary location, a Whale Wash, we meet Oscar (Will Smith), a just-this-side-of-ne'er-do-well who would rather dream big than squeegee the clientele. Oscar's boss, Sykes (Martin Scorsese), is a puffer fish fast loosing patience for his sloppy work. An angelfish named Angie (Renee Zellweger) pines for our eventual hero -- who will take credit for slaying a killer shark called Frankie (Michael Imperioli), son of whatever passes for a fish godfather, Don Lino (Robert De Niro). Don Lino's other son, Lennie (Jack Black), is already an embarrassment to the family, for reasons which will mean one thing to kids and quite another to adults. As Oscar reaps the benefits of his labor, all guided by his new "manager" Sykes, his gills are thrilled, so to speak, by the lovely Lola (Angelina Jolie). That doesn't please Angie at all. What we haven't mentioned is that Oscar's reaping involves a deal with the devil or, in this case, the embarrassing scion of an enemy tribe. That's all news to ace reporter Katie Current (Katie Couric), who's not the ace all would think her to be.

That's also all the story material we're going to reveal. We're not going to reveal The Event which brings Oscar into league with the Enemy. The How and Who are the hinges upon which this entire story hangs. The How is also a good visual gag, so let yourself be surprised. Shark Tale is thin on story -- you can figure out the important turns the tale will take from what we've already written -- but it is heavy enough to float on its jokes. So let it do so.

On average, a first run movie ticket will run you Ten Bucks. Were Cranky able to set his own price to Shark Tale, he would have paid . . .

$5.00

With guest voices including Peter Falk, Vincent Pastore of the Sopranos and Doug E Doug and Ziggy Marley (as Ernie and Bernie, Rastafari-looking Jellyfish enforcers) there's enough good stuff in Shark Tale for us to recommend you lugging any resident kidlets to the local big screen. Those without may want to wait for rental, if for nothing else than to listen to De Niro run rings around his earlier mob characters.

amazon com link Click to buy films by Will Smith
Click to buy films starring Robert De Niro
Click to buy films starring Angelina Jolie
Click to buy films starring Renee Zellweger
Click Here!
Lord of the Rings merchandise - LOTRshop.com
The Cranky Critic® is a Registered Trademark of, and his website is  Copyright © 1995-2008 by, Chuck Schwartz. Articles by Paul Fischer Copyright © 1999 - 2006 Paul Fischer. All images, unless otherwise noted, are property of,©, ®, T their respective studios and are used by permission. All Rights Reserved. Not to be used or copied for any commercial purpose. Academy AwardT(s) and Oscar®(s) are registered trademarks and service marks of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Amazon Honor System Click Here to Pay Learn More


Your Donations feed us

buy Cranky gear!
Buy Cranky stuff
Click Here to Pay Learn More

Click here to buy posters!
Buy movie posters!

BUY THE LATEST DVDs

Star Wars Trilogy (Widescreen)
DVD
(Full Screen)
lotr
Lord of the Rings Trilogy DVD

Marx Bros collection
hitchcock dvd
Alfred Hitchcock Collection


Looney Toons
Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3
Rocky & Bullwinkle
Season 1
Season 2
Season 3
Star Trek TOS
Star Trek TNG
Star Trek Films

Criterion Collections

Buy Movie collectibles
TV/Movie Collectibles

Click here for your favorite eBay items


online movie critics

Privacy Policy

Labelled with ICRA
We're Kidlet Safe

Search engine
by FreeFind
Click to add search to YOUR web site!
click to search site

   Now in Release:

The Band's Visit
Definitely Maybe
Hottie and the Nottie
In Bruges
Iron Man
Be Kind Rewind
Rambo
Cloverfield
Mad Money
U2 3D

28 Weeks Later
Black Book
Bourne Ultimatum
Brooklyn Rules
Death at a Funeral
Evening
The Ex
Fido
Georgia Rule
Grindhouse
Hairspray
Harry Potter - Phoenix
The Hoax
Hot Rod
I Know Who Killed Me
La Vie en Rose
License to Wed
Live Free or Die Hard
Mr. Brooks
Next
No Reservatons
Ocean's Thirteen
Perfect Stranger
Pirates of Caribbean
Ratatouille
Rescue Dawn
Rush Hour 3
Severance
Sicko
Simpsons Movie
Slow Burn
Snow Cake
Spider-Man 3
Stardust

    DVDs on Sale:
300
Alice in Wonderland
Batman Begins
Bambi
Beauty and the Beast
Blade Runner
Bridge to Terabithia
Charlie + Chocolate Factory
Cinderella
E.T.
Fantastic Four
Forrest Gump
Gone With the Wind
Harry Potter yrs 1-3 set
Harry Potter Azkaban
The Incredibles
Indiana Jones trilogy
The Lion King
Lord of Rings 12 discs
Mary Poppins 40th LE
Ultimate Matrix set
Miss Potter
Monty Python - Grail
Napoleon Dynamite
Pirates of the Caribbean
Pirates of the Caribbean 2
Shrek
Shrek 2
Sin City
Sleeping Beauty
South Park Movie
Spider-Man
Spider-Man 2
Star Wars Ep. 1
Star Wars Ep. 2
Star Wars 3 Full Screen
Star Wars 3 l'box
Star Wars Trilogy (4-6)
The Island
War of the Worlds
X-Men
X-Men 2

The Cranky Critic® is a Registered Trademark of, and his website is  Copyright © 1995-2008 by, Chuck Schwartz. Articles by Paul Fischer Copyright © 1999 - 2006 Paul Fischer. All images, unless otherwise noted, are property of,©, ®, T their respective studios and are used by permission. All Rights Reserved. Not to be used or copied for any commercial purpose. Academy AwardT(s) and Oscar®(s) are registered trademarks and service marks of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.