Shark Bait (2006)

the audience applauded

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

I first saw this film at the cinema nearly seven years ago because it appealed to me after having already enjoyed similar films such as 'Shark Tale' and 'Finding Nemo.'While this film has derivative elements from the other two films mentioned above (I.e. This film's poster looking similar to the one for 'Shark Tale' and the story starting off as 'Finding Nemo' in reverse), it still has colourful characters and backgrounds, amusing dialogue and lovely music. The film also had some clichéd snippets of dialogue ("You are what you eat," "plenty more fish in the sea," etc) and crude moments (e.g. Those involving sea creatures peeing and farting underwater) but these are saved by its most positive aspects. Some of the most memorable scenes were Pi being separated from his parents at the beginning, Pi growing from a child fish to an adult fish whilst leaping out of the sea, Cordelia saying the shark's breath "tastes like tuna" when he kissed her and the underwater amphitheatre scenes. One scene I found particularly impressive was the sea turtle fighting off the evil squids - this instantly made me think of 'Teenage Mutant Hero/Ninja Turtles.' Other gripes include the ending being abrupt and the sad fact that Pi never found his parents.Overall this is on par with 'Shark Tale' but not quite as good as 'Finding Nemo.' 8/10.

Ugh I wanted to rate this film less than a 1 but I can't. This is truly the worst film ripping off so many films such as Finding Nemo, Shark Tales and Karate Kid. This film is EXTREMELY cliché and I thought Osmosis Jones was cliché but looking back at it the story has an educational mix to it unlike this film where the plot is very boring. The animation and graphics are poor to say the least. Why even make a film about an annoying orange fish with an ignorant pink female fish (she's the worst character in this film because of her ignorance and her obnoxiousness) and a gross shark. I say it's a rip- off of Karate Kid because it's a plot where 'A protagonist finds a girl he likes but she is with the antagonist and he's coming to fight for her back', sounds familiar? Even Shrek 4 wasn't this bad. This film is unwatchable and I had to watch it twice to make sure I didn't make a stupid mistake but there was no doubt now. I know people will say there are worse films or say things like 'Plan 9 From Outer Space' or 'Battleship Earth' are the worst films but I have watched them and they are bad but tolerable. I can be cruel and go as far as saying that I would rather become friends with Jon Venables and Robert Thompson than to ever watch this torture device. I really hope Nemo comes and murders Pi and Cordellia.

Compared to this, films like The Little Mermaid and more recently Finding Nemo are broad, groundbreaking epic pieces of surrealist animated genius that echo Fantasia. Yes, Shark Bait truly is that bad in fact it could well be looked at as a new low for animation as a whole. But it's not that Shark Bait isn't just bad, it's mostly pointless. Did we really need another film about a young and energetic hero who must overcome his self doubts and doubters as he strives to win the heart of a young female and beat the bad guys in the process, creating a better and safer new order? No, we didn't but Shark Bait goes ahead anyway.I read that this film was a joint venture between the U.S.A. and South Korea; ugh, what do these two nations have in common when it comes to film-making? Shark Bait's cast includes R. Lee Ermey; John Rhys-Davies; Donal Logue; Rob Schneider and Freddie Prinze Jr. Love or hate any of the cast, that's still an impressive array of different personalities but judging by the animation, did they blow all the money on the cast? There used to be a time when it didn't matter who was doing the voiceovers and the goal was to create a dynamic and visually impressive experience, not any more it would seem; now we have to have names to fill up the posters and get people in – but get them into what? A word on the animation. On this occasion, the film looks more like a badly rendered PC screensaver produced by a second rate company for an equally second rate computer, and that's at the best of times. There is one occasion when the animation threatens to pull through and that's when the hero and his girl are above the sea level watching the moon – the ripples in the water and clouds above seem impressive enough, but that's when you realise the two fish have been above the water for so long, they would've 'drowned' by now.Also, a point on the joint U.S.A./South Korea set-up is that they're two very different nations when it comes to animation or cartoons. When I think of Korea, I guess I think of 'funimation', or 'cute' animation, something that has perhaps spilled over from Japanese contemporary culture. Now, it's all well and good saying this is a kids film and so forth and that it fits but there is a clash of ideas here. The Americans have made some cracking animated films in the last few years such as Monster's Inc.; Ice Age and Finding Nemo but these were American through and through and there is no 'influence' or clashing from other nation's animated ideas.The Shark Bait of the title is Pi (Prinze Jr.), a young fish whose family is swept away by a human fishing net and flees to a fish sanctuary far away to live with a relative. It's here he meets girlfriend Cordelia (Evans-Wood) and shark bully Troy (Logue), who wants Cordelia for himself – can you imagine what the kids between a shark and an angelfish (or whatever Cordelia is) would look like? Anyway, Pi must come to learn that just taking something is the wrong belief and sharing what Troy thinks is additionally incorrect so he must go through a training montage with an elder mentor and on and on it goes. Now, delivering this sort of message to very young kids is fine, I suppose, but when a film is so inept that it sounds like the voice talent was recorded in someone's living room and the script sees needs-must to throw in homosexual German crabs and a photographer of French decent as well as Jamaican and Southern United State accents for the hell of it, it grates on me.Additionally at Shark Bait's centre is the idea that Cordelia, the female the two males are fighting over, is nothing but a mere prize to be won and that's the catalyst for the whole film to even happen - that part certainly isn't a positive message. The film is all feint, feint set up and no payoff. Did I mention Cordelia is supposed to be some sort of fish celebrity that appears on the cover of National Geographic? I guess the fish know that because one of them must've seen a discarded issue, amid all the other trash, on the bed of where Pi was living at the very beginning. But, this celebrity status is non-existent from the beginning and she manages to go to a concert with Pi without anyone noticing her – that's before the trip above water where they should've died.The film wonders on and Pi eventually undertakes a training routine from a turtle that knows some sort of martial art in which controlling water bursts and moving at high speed are key; Pi only cracks it when he actually builds up enough energy to get genuinely angry. Everything from Troy's nasty sidekicks, one of whom seems to posses an accent reminiscent of a 1930s Hollywood gangster whilst the other seems to be doing a really bad Christopher Walken impression, to Troy's own frequent rhyming as he attempts to get across a sense of evil; it all fails and fails big time.

A little fish moves to a shallow reef. When he gets there he finds a lot of new friends and one common enemy: a nasty tempered shark. Determined to win the heart of a girl, he decides to do something about the shark.Animation films for children always have one thing in common: very happy and brilliant color schemes. It worked for this one. The insane amounts of different fish and the things they did worked wonders on my nephew. Personally I can't say I was really thrilled by this film although it really isn't half bad. Most scenery was worked out rather nicely and the story was pretty much OK.Not great, not grand, but good enough for a bored Sunday afternoon and watchable with young kids as there isn't too much heavy action in it.6 out of 10 fish about to be sushi'd