DVD Review - SHARK TALE

My son Dominic (almost 2 years old!) is on this trip right now that he wakes up in the middle of the night and wants to watch Finding Nemo. He walk into our bedroom crying "Nemo." My wife just pops in the DVD, puts him in bed with us, and goes back to sleep. He usually falls asleep before Nemo even gets taken by the divers, but I'm getting tired of watching the first 10 minutes of Nemo every night. I've tried putting in other movies. "How about Pooh Bear, Dominic," I say. He cries for Nemo. Spongebob works, but then he doesn't fall asleep. I think it's the soothing ocean tones and motion of the animation that just relaxes him. So I was looking forward to Shark Tale as a possible sub for Nemo, at least once or twice a week.
I'd heard Shark Tale was pretty week. It's from dreamworks animation, the people who brought you Shrek and Shrek 2. The animation was good (that fish sure looks like Will Smith), but the script. Most of the jokes are just Will Smith cutting up, like he used to do on Fresh Prince of Bel Air. There's a few laughs, but most of the script falls flat. Lame pop culture references abound, and the only thing this has in common with Nemo is it's beneath the ocean. The voice work is hit or miss. Smith, as Oscar, is his usual manic self, De Niro is just doing his own past characters (from Analyze This and Scarface) and Jack Black's voice in unrecognizable as Lenny the Shark. Angelina Jolie's performance as sexy seductress-fish Lola is God-awful. Renee Zellweger is great as Oscar's love interest Angie. She steals every seen she's in, not an easy thing in an animated feature. Also Ziggy Marley and Doug E. Doug are awesome as two rastafarian jelly fish Ernie and Bernie.
So the verdict is....undecided. Dominic payed little attention to this movie when we started watching it, but the next day in Sam's, Dom saw the DVD and pointed and said "Shark Tale!" So we watched some more that night and he liked it, but was scared by some of the early Shark scenes. But then, within 15 minutes, he was asleep. Looks like I'll be seeing more of this movie. It's nowhere near as good as Nemo, but I'm sure kids will love it. I am a sucker for a good M.C. Hammer joke.

The Sneaky Cheetah's Grade: C