Shark Tale

A showoff fish (voice by Will Smith) poses as a “shark slayer,” which puts him on the bad side of the local shark mob boss (Robert De Niro). This animated feature from DreamWorks isn’t bad—just dumb and absolutely pointless. The story is dull and, worse, has nothing to do with fish, even on a cartoon level—it seems to have been made only because Jeffrey Katzenberg got wind that Pixar and Disney were making Finding Nemo (will he ever get over his pissing contest with Disney?). The script is a long string of awful verbal and visual puns, and the animation, while colorful, is a big step back from the Shrek films (and nowhere near Pixar’s league). This is strictly for undemanding kids; their folks can kill the time by picking out the voices: Renée Zellweger, Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Martin Scorsese and Peter Falk.