SHARK TALE **
(for younger kids: *)
DIRECTED BY Bibo Bergeron, Vicky Jenson & Rob Letterman
WITH THE VOICES OF Will Smith, Robert De Niro, Renée Zellweger
US 2004 90 mins.
DODGEBALL: A TRUE UNDERDOG STORY ***
DIRECTED BY Rawson Marshall Thurber
STARRING Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, Christine Taylor, Rip Torn
US 2004 92 mins.
By Preston Wilder
WHOEVER made Shark Tale knew what they were doing. I can even say they did it very well (the film was a major hit in the US and Europe). But that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Following in the footsteps of Shrek, this is a shrewd attempt to flatten all the childhood magic out of cartoons, turning them into another sub-species of teen-oriented comedy – media-savvy, Attitude-laden and stuffed with in-jokes.
Admittedly, cartoons haven’t always been for kids. My friendly video-club owner gave me a funny look a couple of weeks ago when I rented the Looney Tunes Collection (including Daffy Duck in the brilliant Duck Amuck) – but the Bugs and Daffy ’toons were actually meant to be screened not on kids’ TV but in theatres showing the latest Hollywood product, part of the once-familiar package that prefaced movies with cartoon, newsreel and short. More recently, some of the best American comedies of the past decade have been animated and child-oriented: take Toy Story, or The Emperor’s New Groove. But there’s a subtle difference between those cartoons and this one.
Something like Toy Story lives in the world of kids – not just in featuring toys but in featuring a secret universe, just as childhood is a world apart. Its humour is goofy and subversive: just like in the old Bugs and Daffy shorts, one gets a sense of adult sensibility behind sweet childish slapstick. Shark Tale is exactly the opposite: there’s a thick patina of sophistication but in fact the tone is crude and shrill, driven by movie in-jokes and hyperactive energy. Some cartoons – the best ones – create a cosy world that kids can feel comfortable in, then spike it with wit for the parents. This one creates a brash, busy world that’ll probably make younger kids feel uncomfortable; it’s more in tune with older kids and teens, which is precisely the idea.
What we have here is a Mafia comedy set underwater (cue unflattering comparisons with Finding Nemo). Robert De Niro voices a shark with his trademark mole on its cheek; director Martin Scorsese voices a puffer-fish – sample line: “Who’s your Puff Daddy?” – and it’ll take a pretty cine-savvy tyke to know of Scorsese’s legendary partnership with De Niro, or to realise the puffer-fish looks like the director (those unmistakable eyebrows). Sharks are the marine Mafiosi, but De Niro has a son who’s an embarrassment: Lenny – that’s the kid – is a vegetarian, likes picking flowers and also likes to dress up as a dolphin. His dad despairs of him but finally accepts him the way he is, which Moral Majority types in the States have already slammed as code for telling kids it’s ‘OK to be gay’. Maybe it is, but the Message – whatever one may think of it – is really no different from the old ‘it’s OK to be different’ moral Disney have been peddling since Beauty and the Beast; just a bit more explicit, part of the film’s teenage-angled ‘edginess’.
There’s a snappy, hip-hop vibe to Shark Tale. Will Smith as our piscine hero never stops jabbering, with pop songs and montages picking up the pace. A lot of it revolves around relationships, and little boys who still think girls are yucky will wonder why Renée Zellweger is so despondent when Will introduces her as his “best friend” (she is, of course, secretly in love with him). As in Osmosis Jones a few years ago, there are quite a few gags transposing urban sights to an alien, fishy setting (my favourite: the sign in the red-light district promising “Eels Eels Eels”). And there’s a plethora of movie in-jokes, which is really the most depressing thing about modern kidpics: the assumption that the young audience is showbiz-literate, able to laugh along knowingly when our hero says “Are you not entertained?” (from Gladiator), or “You can’t handle the truth!” (A Few Good Men) or “You had me at hello” (Jerry Maguire).
Of course, what’s really sad about Shark Tale is that it makes perfect sense, from a business standpoint. Little kids and parents are a captive audience, the former because they’ll watch anything, the latter because they’re forced to tag along. The real prize are the in-betweens, who shun cartoons as too babyish; get the adolescents, and you’ve doubled your audience. Sure, a little magic may get lost in the process, but that’s par for the course. No wonder the film has sharks as its heroes.
It’s a strange thing, Hollywood’s comedy culture: cartoons get more adult while adults regress into childhood – literally so in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, in which a bunch of misfits play the old school-playground game where you throw a ball trying to hit your opponents. There’s a cash prize of $50,000, which they need in order to prevent their gym being sold – but the plot is perfunctory, the film’s real attraction being violent slapstick with people getting dodgeballed in the head, groin and so forth. My matinee audience was rolling in the aisles.
Dodgeball isn’t really very good (it’s right at the low end of the three-star spectrum), but at least it’s honest. Maybe I’m just becoming jaded in my old age, but I find something endearing in films that keep it simple, setting out their plot without preamble (see also Cellular): when Rip Torn arrives, as the washed-up dodgeball star who coaches this ragtag band, he just shows up with no real explanation – because we’ve all seen enough of these films to know there’s always a has-been coach turning the misfits into winners. Even the recent Men With Brooms, which is a comedy about curling (!), had Leslie Nielsen.
Needless to say, the misfits win, and Ben Stiller – way over-the-top as the villainous owner of a rival gym – is vanquished. Along the way we get assorted puns on “balls”, cameos by sports stars as themselves, a pair of wacky commentators out of Kingpin or Best in Show, and some bizarre non sequiturs including David Hasselhoff and a unicorn fetish (fortunately not in the same scene). There’s also the occasional inspired gag, notably a 50s instructional film that deserves to be placed with ‘Mobutu’s video’ from Zoolander in the annals of inspired piss-takes, Recent American Comedy section.
Only in one area is Dodgeball (ahem) dodgy. The film sets up its heroes as the epitome of be-yourself slacker-dom, opposed to Stiller’s manic self-improvement: he forces himself to be super-fit, whereas they just do as they please. Yet it then goes on to play the dreaded Better Person card, with the characters resolving their crises and becoming Better People – i.e. self-improving – en route to the climax; the epilogue is especially schizophrenic, with Vince Vaughn (as our hero) actually saying “You’re fine as you are”, then inviting people to his gym anyway. It’s as though the film wants to cover all bases, just like it contrives to make one team member gay then pretty much ignores his gayness (indeed, he turns out to be bi-). Where are those cross-dressing sharks when you really need them?
NEW DVD RELEASES
Here’s our regular look at the more interesting titles released on DVD in the US and UK over the past few weeks (most are also out on VHS). Some of these may be available to rent from local video clubs, or you can always order over the Internet: dozens of suppliers, but http://www.amazon.com (for US) and http://www.sendit.com (for UK) are among the most reliable, albeit not the cheapest. Note that US discs are ‘Region 1’, and require a multi-region player.
NEW FILMS
LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE: Lush, offbeat Thai-Japanese tale of a love affair between two very different people. [UK]
TWILIGHT SAMURAI: More arthouse fare, a low-key, touching Japanese period drama about an unlikely samurai. Nominated for last year’s Foreign Language Film Oscar. [UK]
24 – SEASON THREE: Deleted scenes, cast and crew commentary and oh so much more. [US]
OLD FILMS
SHORT CUTS (1993): Another deluxe package from the Criterion Collection: Robert Altman’s magisterial drama comes with making-of documentaries, deleted scenes and – wait for it – a book of the Raymond Carver stories on which the film is based! Superb. [US]
CALIFORNIA SPLIT (1974): Another Altman masterpiece, probably the best-ever film about gamblers. No extras, alas. [US]
GONE WITH THE WIND (1939): Special 4-disc Collector’s Edition is a bit much, but certainly packed with extras – and the film has never looked better. [US]
AU HASARD BALTHAZAR (1966) and MOUCHETTE (1967): Stark, unflinching dramas from director Robert Bresson, focusing on abused innocents – a girl in Mouchette, a donkey in Balthazar – in a cruel world. [UK]
FANNY AND ALEXANDER (1983): More madness from the Criterion Collection! A 5-disc set, featuring both the three-hour theatrical cut and five-hour TV cut of Ingmar Bergman masterwork, plus copious extras. A snip at around $40 plus shipping – though a $20 version is also available, featuring only the theatrical cut plus a couple of extras. Essential. [US]
THE MICHAEL PALIN COLLECTION: From the sublime to the … thoroughly likeable. Mr Palin travels Pole to Pole, Around the World in 80 Days and more. Around £60 (plus shipping) for over 36 hours of harmless British eccentricity. [UK]
