Looking at this movie, it is baffling how this was nominated alongside Shrek 2, the best one in my opinion in the entire franchise, and the Incredibles. Not to mention that when this came out, The Spongebob movie existed. Yes, THIS MOVIE got nominated for Best Animated Feature, but the Spongebob movie did not. Why? I legitimately do not know.
The plot is basically a mafia movie filled with pop culture references and dumb worldbuilding gags. You've got Gup, Coral Cola, and Fish King...yeah. You've also got them associated with race like with the white fish line from Oscar, and that just confuses me to no end.
I don't really care for the characters, especially Oscar. He is the WORST character in the movie full of bad characters. Oscar is such a jerk that he actively proves against his earned emotional climax and all of the fame he gets. He sells off his best friend's pearl (who, we are told is his best friend from him specifically) to bet the money on a horse, and then starts bragging when Lenny's brother dies even though he should be swimming away. Literally EVERYONE believes him about slaying a shark when the shark is like twice his size, without evidence or anyone who actually saw the 'slaying.' Even though Oscar himself is not particularly likable to everyone. Will Smith is a great actor, I just wish he wasn't playing Oscar. Lenny is...okay...I just can't stand his voice, unfortunately. And the whole vegetarian thing has...much more meaning now than it did when I first watched it. Angie seemed fine for me up until she saw Oscar kiss Lola, and then I just lost all sympathy with how antagonistic she acted afterwards. Sykes is annoying, the jellyfish are a special form of agony, and the other sharks are there, I guess...Lola is kinda okay up until she betrays Oscar by suddenly being in the mafia for...reasons.
The animation, holy lord! I didn't remember it being this awful when I saw it again. Why would you make realistic faces on fishes? What kind of appeal does that make, even for 2004? It's just freaky! And it's wrong! Who wants these designs? And the background characters are not only distracting, but give me nightmares.
The voice acting is decent, but that's probably the biggest compliment I can give the movie. But for me, it's hard to notice when my eyeballs have to be subjected to the animation so much that I can't pay attention to it. The jokes are okay, but it didn't scream that this movie had to be made, yet it was. It's just not really dialogue-based comedy because they expect you to laugh at dumb fish puns and pop culture references and stereotypes, all of which are not funny on their own.
And the ending is nonsensical. Literally every shark is okay with not eating fish (with a restaurant named Fish King that exists in their universe) again, and I cannot buy that. Not ONE shark is going to try to go against that? What killed any chance of this movie being good was that it just wanted to be Shrek, and it failed. Don't watch this, it's a waste of your time, and your eyes don't need to be punished looking at it.
The plot is basically a mafia movie filled with pop culture references and dumb worldbuilding gags. You've got Gup, Coral Cola, and Fish King...yeah. You've also got them associated with race like with the white fish line from Oscar, and that just confuses me to no end.
I don't really care for the characters, especially Oscar. He is the WORST character in the movie full of bad characters. Oscar is such a jerk that he actively proves against his earned emotional climax and all of the fame he gets. He sells off his best friend's pearl (who, we are told is his best friend from him specifically) to bet the money on a horse, and then starts bragging when Lenny's brother dies even though he should be swimming away. Literally EVERYONE believes him about slaying a shark when the shark is like twice his size, without evidence or anyone who actually saw the 'slaying.' Even though Oscar himself is not particularly likable to everyone. Will Smith is a great actor, I just wish he wasn't playing Oscar. Lenny is...okay...I just can't stand his voice, unfortunately. And the whole vegetarian thing has...much more meaning now than it did when I first watched it. Angie seemed fine for me up until she saw Oscar kiss Lola, and then I just lost all sympathy with how antagonistic she acted afterwards. Sykes is annoying, the jellyfish are a special form of agony, and the other sharks are there, I guess...Lola is kinda okay up until she betrays Oscar by suddenly being in the mafia for...reasons.
The animation, holy lord! I didn't remember it being this awful when I saw it again. Why would you make realistic faces on fishes? What kind of appeal does that make, even for 2004? It's just freaky! And it's wrong! Who wants these designs? And the background characters are not only distracting, but give me nightmares.
The voice acting is decent, but that's probably the biggest compliment I can give the movie. But for me, it's hard to notice when my eyeballs have to be subjected to the animation so much that I can't pay attention to it. The jokes are okay, but it didn't scream that this movie had to be made, yet it was. It's just not really dialogue-based comedy because they expect you to laugh at dumb fish puns and pop culture references and stereotypes, all of which are not funny on their own.
And the ending is nonsensical. Literally every shark is okay with not eating fish (with a restaurant named Fish King that exists in their universe) again, and I cannot buy that. Not ONE shark is going to try to go against that? What killed any chance of this movie being good was that it just wanted to be Shrek, and it failed. Don't watch this, it's a waste of your time, and your eyes don't need to be punished looking at it.