One of the earliest computer-animated DreamWorks Animation features, "Shark Tale" was a star-studded affair that featured the likes of Will Smith, Robert De Niro, and Martin Scorsese (among many others) in its cast. However, all those big names weren't enough to make this gangster movie pastiche click with critics. Generally, "Shark Tale" scored negative reviews, with a slew of flaws frequently brought up as reasons to give the movie a pass. Roger Ebert, though, pinpointed an especially egregious mistake with "Shark Tale" concerning how it didn't offer its target demographic, children, characters they could relate to. As Ebert put it, "Shark Tale" was a movie about decidedly adult problems like murder, debt, and infidelity. Would the kids who would inevitably come out in droves for this movie be interested in such storytelling material?
Lou Lumenick of The New York Post, meanwhile, was especially appalled how "Shark Tale" was crammed with outdated pop culture references and nonstop dialogue straining to get a laugh out of the audience. Even worse, Lumenick observed that the previous year's "Finding Nemo" showed off an infinitely better way to tell a family-friendly story about computer-animated fish. Unfortunately for everyone who went to see it, "Shark Tale" was no "Finding Nemo," not even close.
