YMMV / Shark Tale

YMMV Items for the movie

• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: The movie tries to give a "be grateful with what you have and be honest" message, but to some it comes across as being told to avoid aiming higher and just accept having a dead-end job in lieu of having a relationship.
• Alternative Joke Interpretation: In one early scene, Don Feinberg offers to sing "the Titanic song" (presumably "My Heart Will Go On"), which the others present react to with horror. Is this a potshot at the song, or an indication that Feinberg is a bad singer?
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • Despite clearly not being a killer, Frankie's death does not affect Oscar, even when he sees Lenny's reaction to it firsthand. He shows no remorse for his accidental involvement and gladly exploits it to make himself a celebrity. Considering Frankie tried to kill Oscar before his death, Oscar's initial lack of concern isn't that surprising. But even when he later befriends Lenny, he's more concerned about getting caught for lying rather than feeling guilt or empathy for the pain that Lenny and his family feel.
  • Though he mostly blames himself for his brother's death, Lenny doesn't have any major issue with Oscar taking credit for killing Frankie and shamelessly profiting off it. He gladly goes along with the scheme without any regret or uncertainty, and even fakes his own death to help maintain Oscar's celebrity status.
  • Everyone is surprisingly happy for Oscar when he reveals the truth, and he suffers no major consequences for his prolonged deception or all the brands and sponsorship deals that he made during it. Even Don Lino is far too forgiving considering that Oscar pretended to kill both his sons to make himself famous.
• Ass Pull: The climax is kicked off by Lola working with the sharks to have Angie abducted. She was never indicated to have any ties to their organization before this point, and her meeting and alliance with Lino is never shown, so the film doesn't explain how she was able to approach the sharks at all without being killed or eaten on sight ^note While the film's portrayal of the sharks is aesthetically inspired by the Mafia, they're still presented as natural predators that kill and eat other fish without any thought or prejudice.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Angie, either the Only Sane Woman in the story and a relatable character for unsuccessfully pining after Oscar until the end, or a moron, for putting that much faith into Oscar, and acting entitled when she sees Lola kissing him, even though they weren't dating at all at that point, and also simply forgives him and agrees to be his girlfriend despite all the awful stuff he did to her.
  • Lenny is either a relatable character and good metaphor for gay people who is one of the few things to like about the film and should have been the protagonist since the film is called Shark Tale, or just as much of an idiot as the rest of the cast with an annoying shrill voice and the gay references being laid too thick and preachy to leave any sort of impact.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: Lola, being voiced by Angelina Jolie, is a memorable fanservice character by DreamWorks standards.
• Bile Fascination: Nowadays, it's almost impossible to discuss bad animated movies without mentioning this one (especially since it was nominated for an Academy Award), so any animation fan or critic worth their salt will likely be required to watch the movie to see if it's as horrible as people claim.
• Captain Obvious Aesop: Liars never prosper as there are always consequences, and doing it for fame and fortune is not worth the trouble. However, even with the obvious message, the film never fully reconciles how Oscar's life became even better because of his lies.
• Cliché Storm: The protagonist dreams of fame, lies to everyone about being the hero, gets involved in a romantic subplot borne of poor communication and because this is a kids movie, everyone just lets him off the hook. Turning the characters into humans and setting the movie on the surface would have no effect on the plot.
• Critic-Proof: While critics hated it, the film remained #1 at the box office for three weeks straight.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Despite the disturbing implications of the sushi joke at the beginning of the movie, it is still pretty funny as a stand-alone joke.
• Designated Hero: Many reviewers and audiences have commented on the fact that Oscar is clearly meant to be something of a likable asshole, but mostly comes off as a regular asshole who does very little that's good and a whole lot that's bad. For example, he sells his best friend Angie's prized family heirloom and uses the money to bet on a horse race instead of settling his debt with Sykes, for which Angie gives him no kind of reckoning whatsoever. His only motivation is fame, while he whines about his steady job at the whale wash where he still has fun and gets along with just about everyone there. This is also apparent in the video games, where he is shown as too lazy and cheap to pay his own rent.
• Designated Villain:
  • Don Feinberg doesn't do anything evil at all. There is more good in him than in any other character from the movie.
  • Luca also counts. He's too stupid to be considered a villain after Sykes was fired.
• Do Not Do This Cool Thing: Oscar learns not to lie, but it's apparent he got all this awesome stuff out of it. He even gets to keep his penthouse in one of the video games.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Even the film's harshest critics have praised Martin Scorsese's performance as Sykes, with most finding him the funniest and most surprisingly sympathetic character.
  • Luca is a likable octopus that provides necessary and well-written humor that doesn't reek of references.
• Esoteric Happy Ending:
  • Oscar finally telling the truth after all of the brand deals he made with the thousands of product placements could land him in jail for fraud, as well as being sued for everything he did, as well as Angie, their children and grandchildren for around 100 generations.
  • Not to mention, for a movie based around the premise that eating fish is bad, the sharks get to eat as many fish as they want... just not at this particular reef.
• Ethnic Scrappy: Ernie and Bernie are widely seen as Jamaican stereotypes. Their bells and tentacles are designed to resemble Jamaican hats and dreadlocks respectively, they like to play jokes, sound like they’re high, and they, of course, sing a Bob Marley song. At the very least, they're played by actors who are actually Jamaican (Ziggy Marley as Ernie) and a part-Jamaican (Doug E. Doug as Bernie), respectively.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Owing to the Ink-Suit Actor aspects of the designs, many have taken to referring to the characters as [actor name] fish - e.g. Will Smith Fish, Jack Black Shark, and so on.
  • Sykes is often called Puff Daddy thanks to two of his lines.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Don Lino is a dangerous and easily offended mob boss, but he genuinely loves his family and prioritizes preparing his sons to take over his position, falling into complete despair when his oldest son is unceremoniously killed and his youngest disappears. With Lola becoming a far more unscrupulous antagonist in the third act, it's hard not to feel sympathetic for Lino in his desperate quest for vengeance.
  • Sykes is short-tempered and tends to make overly-drastic decisions, such as leaving Oscar to the sharks and then impulsively threatening Lino after Frankie's death, but it's hard not to sympathize with his desperation to protect himself, his business and his employees from Lino's wrath. Oscar's lies and incompetence constantly make things worse for Sykes, and when he gambles away the protection money that they were supposed to give to Lino, Sykes is quite justified with finally deciding to get rid of Oscar once and for all.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Despite being the main protagonist of the movie and being intended as a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, Oscar is often met with disdain from viewers for his constant lying, general insensitivity towards Angie and his poor judgement leading him to make reckless decisions. The fish-eating mob boss Don Lino is viewed in a much more sympathetic light by comparison thanks to his love for his sons and his motivations revolving around avenging the death of one of them.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • This GIF of a zoom-in on Sykes' face◊ has been used across Discord and other message boards as a Double Take reaction or a "No. Just… No" Reaction to "questionable" content.
    • Doesn't seem to be any cringe/X around he- 0_0.^Explanation A Tempting Fate / Instantly Proven Wrong version of the above meme.
  • A shot of Oscar's mouth open from where he opens a chest is popular.
  • "X Circle X X Double Left Square Right Trigger Down Square Square" has become an inside joke for the gaming community.
  • Oscar hitting Marty in the face became a popular joke after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock in the face at the 2022 Oscars.
• Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: Despite the jellyfish being Jamaican stereotypes, they have their fair share of Jamaican fans.
• Moral Event Horizon: Lola crosses it by arranging for Don Lino to kidnap Angie and gleefully threaten her life if Oscar doesn't comply.
  Lola: You know, Sharkslayer, there's only one thing I like better than money: Revenge!
• Narm:
  • The mood of Frankie’s funeral is initially presented as genuinely sad as the family throws his wrapped body off the cliff edge, but any attempt to be moving and emotional is cut short when they also show his corpse unceremoniously floating up to the surface.
  • After Oscar argues with Angie, the "Get it Together" montage where he swims through town is supposed to show him understanding that he's become too materialistic and selfish, but does so by shoving all the film's actual shameless product placement in the audience's face.
• Narm Charm: Robert De Niro's voice acting during the scene in which Lenny reveals himself to be alive to his father, Don Lino sounds unintentionally laughable when he calls him out for lying to him and being friends with Oscar whom he believes killed Frankie. However, the emotions Don Lino displays after he discovers Lenny is alive and is actually friends with Oscar are anger and sadness in one, and the music played during the scene sounds so melancholic, which make the scene somewhat emotional.
• Offending the Creator's Own: Ernie and Bernie are widely seen as obnoxious Jamaican stereotypes, but their respective voice actors (Ziggy Marley and Doug E. Doug) are fully (the former) and part (the latter) Jamaican.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis: Christina Aguilera's cover of "Car Wash" is more popular than the original song for those who grew up with the film.
• Popular with Furries: Usually in an ironic sense, but given that it features talking sea creatures, it can be notable for furries. Lola, especially.
• Rainbow Lens: Many people in the LGBT community view Lenny's subplot as having parallels with someone coming to terms with being queer.
• Ron the Death Eater: In the film, Oscar is an impulsive Social Climber with dreams of grandeur and no malicious intent whatsoever, who lets his ambitions cloud his judgement before he ultimately learns his lesson. Despite this, his greed, self-centredness and insensitivity are frequently singled out and exaggerated in reviews, fan works and parodies of the film, with many - such as Schaffrillas - going so far as to call him an outright Villain Protagonist.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: The romance between Oscar and Angie is often cited as one of the film's weakest aspects. Oscar's actions make Angie's attraction for him unbelievable in the first place, the characters have little chemistry or reason to get together aside from the film needing an obligatory romance, and removing it would not make much of a difference to the film's narrative.
• Rooting for the Empire:
  • Many people actually wanted Lino to eat Oscar, since he committed fraud and cynically used Lino’s son’s death and his other son’s disappearance to make himself rich and famous.
  • Special mention goes to Lola, who does terrible things to Oscar as revenge for him rejecting her. When she assaults him towards the end of the film, many people were happy as it is one of the few times that Oscar is actually punished for lying about being the sharkslayer. Though as noted above, this was averted with her fin in kidnapping Angie, since Angie is considered a far more sympathetic character than Oscar.
• Questionable Casting: Martin Scorsese as Sykes is by far the most bizarre casting choice in the film, having never previously acted in a voiceover role nor accepted another since. Despite this, his performance is near-unanimously considered to be one of the best things in the movie.
• The Scrappy: Oscar is widely hated by audiences due to his selfish behavior, piss poor lack of common sense, and mistreatment of his only friend Angie. It really says something when Lola, the film's actual Hate Sink, is more liked than him due to her Kick the Dog moments towards him being perceived as Laser-Guided Karma.
• Signature Song:
  • "Car Wash" by Christina Aguilera and Missy Elliot.
  • To a lesser extent, "Good Foot" by Justin Timberlake and Timbaland.
  • The song that people seem to remember most is Mary J. Blige's and Will Smith’s remix of "Got to Be Real", which was played in a lot of commercials for the film.
• So Bad, It's Good: This movie is generally considered the worst DreamWorks Animation film ever. Its attempt to depict "urban gangsta flava" to be hip and relevant to youth at the time (2004) falls so flat that it's still hilarious, and it does so with some of the ugliest CGI fish committed to the big screen. Internet critic Schaffrillas Productions can't bring himself to outright hate the film despite considering it a cinematic trainwreck, saying he thinks it's more enjoyable than Shrek the Third, among others.
• Special Effect Failure: There are quite a few shots in the movie where the lighting and shading effects aren't applied evenly, which has the side effects of casting the character designs into even sharper relief.
• Spiritual Adaptation:
  • Some people think of it as SpongeBob SquarePants meets The Godfather and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
  • Shark Tale is the closest thing to a Martin Scorsese mob movie for kids that will ever get made, even going so far as to have the actual man himself and his frequent collaborator Robert De Niro voice specific characters.
  • Many people think of this as the closest we'll ever see Dear Evan Hansen as a cartoon.
• Strangled by the Red String: Oscar and Angie’s romantic subplot spends most of the film being entirely one-sided on Angie's end, while Oscar doesn't show any indication of returning her feelings (or even caring about her well-being to begin with) until the third act, giving the impression that the writers just had them end up together because it was mandatory for the male and female lead to end up together.
• Squick:
  • Some of the sharks hit on Lola, even though they routinely kill and eat smaller fish like her. An elderly shark even winks at her.
  • When Lola comes back to get back together with Oscar, she finds Crazy Joe, which is squick for both characters for different reasons.
• Tainted by the Preview: People were first introduced to the uncanny designs of the fish thanks to the trailers. Oscar’s design in particular still gets criticized even long after the film's initial release.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!: DreamWorks Animation received plenty of criticism for this, considering this was one year after Finding Nemo, another fish-centric film. It was also released a month before another fish-centric film The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. While they did play this trope at least twice past this point, the critical and popular backlash resulted in it being toned down considerably; Madagascar's rival, The Wild, was only merely distributed by Disney and didn't get the warmest reception either, and Megamind was a superhero movie released 6 years after The Incredibles and was more commonly compared to Despicable Me released the same year. It also helped that Michael Eisner, the frequent punching bag and arguable reason of DreamWorks' existence, was ousted from Disney a year later.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The funeral scene is the only moment in the entire film where we see Don Lino's wife. After that, she just vanishes and it is so easy to miss that you would be forgiven for thinking she was out of the picture.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Oscar constantly complains about his neighborhood and the movie is supposed to show us that there wasn’t anything wrong with it, even though they never show us what his neighborhood is like. They don’t even show us his house. This is surprisingly rectified in the video games, where he gets kicked out of his apartment for never paying his rent and we get to see more of the Southside Reef.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: Three particular actors were praised for their efforts.
  • Jack Black makes a sincere effort to portray Lenny as a friendly yet vulnerable woobie, a notable departure from the loud-mouthed Jerkass characters he was known for at the time. His performance here partially inspired DreamWorks to cast him as the titular character in Kung Fu Panda, which paid off hugely.
  • Martin Scorsese has had many smaller acting roles before, primarily in his own films, but he had never had any involvement in animation before voicing Sykes, which remains his only voice acting role to date. Despite this, Scorsese shines as a temperamental Jerk with a Heart of Gold, and is frequently cited even by detractors as the film's most engaging and entertaining character.
  • While still playing into her typecast at the time, Angelina Jolie plays Lola as appealing and surprisingly layered temptress, going from charming to genuinely intimidating at times. Like Jack Black, her performance here also partially helped Jolie get her role in Kung Fu Panda.
• Uncertain Audience: The movie is a kid-friendly parody of mob movies, likely trying to invoke Multiple Demographic Appeal with a colorful, lively underwater setting, characters with an urban "gangsta" style, and inserting as many references to films like Film/Goodfellas and The Godfather. The problem being that all of these elements got in the way of each other; kids would likely be unable to understand any of the references and be uninterested on the mob-based plot, while the parents of the children watching the movie would likely find it too derivative and crass. Roger Ebert was quoted as saying that he found it strange how a kid-oriented film would parody a 1972-gangster movie for adults.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: A major criticism levelled against the animation is that the character designs take Ink-Suit Actor to an uncomfortable extreme. Angie, Lola, and Sykes look perfectly fine for the most part, but other characters such as Oscar and Luca for example look like their actor's faces were pasted onto realistic fish bodies, with little effort done to properly anthropomorphize them.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The movie is unapologetically a product of 2004. It has an especially large focus on "urban gangsta flavor" and features celebrities who were at their peak among its cast: while Will Smith, Robert De Niro, Jack Black, Martin Scorsese and Angelina Jolie are still well-known, Katie Couric (at the time a host on Today before anchoring CBS' evening newscast) and Renee Zellweger faded from the spotlight years later (although the latter would make a comeback of sorts in the late 2010s), and Peter Falk (whose final Columbo TV movie was made in 2003) would develop Alzheimer's before dying in 2011. The soundtrack also involves numerous artists who were really big at the time, but have since declined in popularity like The Pussycat Dolls and Jo Jo.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Despite the film wanting to portray Oscar as a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who ultimately learns the error of his ways, audiences still felt like Oscar never learned from his mistakes, even by the end of the film. Oscar's schemes, lack of good judgement, and general selfishness are the major reasons that audiences couldn't sympathize with him.
  • The viewer is intended to sympathize with Angie for being constantly pushed to the side by Oscar, despite the fact that she is well aware Oscar is an egotistical con-man who only cares about his own ambitions. She unironically expects Oscar to propose to her at one point, and later in the film she acts as if he is legitimately cheating on her when he kisses Lola, even though they were never together and Oscar had shown no romantic interest in Angie before this point. Angie also never tells Oscar of her own romantic interest, and the film never shows why she would even be attracted to him in the first place.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Despite having a colorful underwater setting in the vein of SpongeBob SquarePants, the film's actual plot is heavily influenced by crime films such as The Godfather. As such, the film tackles some mature subject matters such as violent loan sharks extorting a small business, a rather intense love triangle, and at least one occasion where the protagonist is nearly murdered after failing to pay his debts.
• Why Would Anyone Take Him Back?: It's hard to understand why Angie would be attracted to Oscar by the movie's end. He ignored all the signs that she liked him as more than a friend, pawned her precious gift for money to bet on a losing race, and got her caught up in a scheme where a shark swallowed her.
• The Woobie: Lenny, who is afraid that his father won't accept him for his gentle behavior.

YMMV Items for the game

• Awesome Music: The game has a high-quality soundtrack, not only featuring licensed tracks like MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" and the two game exclusive remixes of Rose Royce's "Car Wash", but also features an absolutely high-octane original score handled by Kevin Manthei (Yes, THAT Kevin Manthei).
• Breather Level: Chapter 22: "A Shark By Any Other Name Would Be Just As Fishy" is the last free-roam level and is fairly short and straight-forward, especially compared to the difficult Lenny boss before it and the incredibly finnicky dance stage afterwards. Avoiding the photographer is notably much simpler this time around than it was in Chapter 19, right down to three snapshots resulting in death instead of just one.
• Disappointing Last Level: Due to being a chase stage, the final confrontation with Don Lino boils down to a few quick-time events, after which the game abruptly ends. Oscar doesn't even get to fight him directly, even though the eel, the hammerhead shark and Lenny got full-on boss fights.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: The console video game based on Shark Tale is praised for its variety of gameplay and high-quality soundtrack. Some would even go as far to say it's outright better than the movie it's based on!
• That One Boss: Lenny, who can take off large chunks of health with every attack, has a dangerous attack pattern that allows him to throw out several fast, hard-hitting attacks that can stunlock Oscar and take even more health off if he's not careful, and has an especially dangerous attack he loves to spam which, although heavily telegraphed, can take out an entire health bar if Oscar incorrectly guesses which area he'll strike. Ironically, this fight was based on a scene in the movie where their confrontation was faked!
• That One Level:
  • Chapter 3: "We interrupt this broadcast..." is a major stumbling block for younger players. While the first few levels are simple stages that give you plenty of room for error and allow you to explore the game's mechanics at your own pace, Chapter 3 turns the game into a Rhythm Game of all things with loads of surprisingly quick inputs to pull off one after the other and a required score of 70% to pass. And this is just the 4th level!
  • Chapter 18: "Ixnay on the Arkshay" is a ludicrously difficult Stealth-Based Mission that involves Oscar having to sneak through all of Reef City with Lenny. Not only is it extremely tricky to avoid the police officers patrolling the area, you're hounded by a photographer who tries to take your picture every few seconds, with getting caught resulting in a Game Over and a trip back to the nearest checkpoint. The level is also incredibly long, which will likely lead to a lot of game overs and restarts if you're going for the bonus and elite objectives.
  • Chapter 19: "A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words", a race stage featuring Oscar and Lenny, is especially frustrating. Unlike the other race stages which were simply designed around getting to the end as fast as possible, the goal is to get to the end while destroying a certain number of newspapers, a task made monumentally frustrating due to Lenny's odd physics, the inability to go back if you miss a paper and the incredibly strict time limit of 3:50. It becomes even more frustrating if you're trying to go for 100% Completion - while the standard mission of destroying forty papers and making it to the end without running out of time is already difficult, the bonus and elite objectives are even worse: the bonus objective requires you destroy nine newspaper stands that are difficult to even see, and the elite objective requires you destroy seventy papers.