Tales of Shark Tale
This year I committed to watching the 2004 animated film Shark Tale every month. I swear this has some sort of point.
A friend and I, on one particularly quiet October evening, decided to watch what she remembered as one of the worst cinematic experiences of her childhood. As a fan of Til Death Do Us Blart, a podcast covering an annual watch of Paul Blart Mall Cop 2, we mused about watching it again at some point. This, as many jokes with this friend, quickly took on a life of its own. We committed to one viewing every calendar month through to the end of 2020. To keep it interesting and fresh, each watch we’re going to try to change something up.
This is not because of some particular reverence for the film. As a now expert on it, I feel highly qualified in saying that it isn’t a gift to cinema. I’m not sure if anyone quite remembers, but the cast is far more star studded than you’d expect. The average person would likely be sold based on it alone; Robert De Niro, Will Smith, Renée Zellweger, Angelina Jolie, even Martin Scorsese in a baffling toe dip into voice acting. But from the first frame to the last I am shocked at how awful Shark Tale is on every sequential watch. The most perplexing element, to me at least, is how little it matters that they’re fish. Now you may be thinking “how could it not?”, well let me tell you, it is nigh irrelevant to the actual way the plot plays out.
The most frustrating scene which includes lamp shading to the fact takes place at a sea horse race. Our ‘hero’ Oscar, or Will Fish as I would call him, is deep in debt. His close personal friend Angie (Zellweger), who is an angel fish because I guess that qualifies as comedy, has gifted him a pearl to pay off these debts. The transition between this scene and the race track must have occurred in what I can only suppose was a cut scene to keep the run time mercifully short. Regardless, Oscar, now at the race tracks has a moment of weakness and attempts to impress Angelina Jolie’s character by betting on the sea horses. Here is where the writers truly flex how lazily pieced together the plot is. In the final moments of the race where it seems Oscar may have made the right call betting on the underdog, the seahorse trips. A fish, which is swimming, trips. Moments later Oscar exclaims “how do you trip underwater?”. This is just one example of many where whoever was involved in this film put in absolutely zero effort. Why are some fish people while other fish are cars? Why is one pearl sentient and another isn’t? Why is there a sushi restaurant in the opening scenes? Everyone makes a big deal of about the sharks eating everyone else, but is every other fish a vegetarian? In one scene, an octopus pours tea into a mug, but it floats away before reaching the mug. He’s confused by this. But, why? He has always been underwater. So that has never once worked in his lifetime.
But the point of watching Shark Tale isn’t really to watch Shark Tale. We know the idea is ridiculous, we know nothing is really stopping us, the Sisyphean challenge of it is self imposed. But the surrounding myth of the watch is starting to take on the air of tradition. In order to keep it interesting, we’ve changed up elements of the watch each time. On our most recent viewing we both donned VR headsets and watched it through a social app called Big Screen. Big Screen allows viewers to create rooms which other players can join, and in the moment we decided to leave ours open. This was the night a stranger from Illinois took over the hosting duties for my monthly Shark Tale watch.
First to join was an American High School freshman. He’d stayed up all night and when his friends went to bed he joined us on a whim. In a move which shocked and horrified us, the powers that be had removed Shark Tale from Australia’s Netflix. More technical difficulties mounted. My WiFi was overwhelmed, we were running out of not only options but drive. We ended up spending a while sitting around a virtual fire pit, trading stories and consoling our new friend. He was, understandably, crushed to not be watching Shark Tale. We were at our lowest point, after psyching ourselves out for the watch, it appeared we would have to attempt another day. In this moment, another player appeared. After two hours of attempting fruitlessly, within minutes our screens were graced with Will Fish thanks to a kind stranger. The watch that followed was unique, as they all have been. Here we were, watching an awful animated film in virtual reality with two American strangers. They didn’t know us, they weren’t aware of what they were walking into. They wished us luck on our future watches, and asked to be invited if another happens in VR.
A question I’ve been asked a lot as this has come up with friends is simply “why?”. While there is a certain level of masochism in the idea, and I do feel like Shark Tale might slowly be etching itself into my brain for better or worse. But since we started this only a few months ago I’ve had a consistent reason to see a friend, met new people, and a goofy story to tell. The joy of making your own ridiculous quasi-tradition is something I’d heartily recommend.
Just don’t watch Shark Tale.
