Shark Tale tells a bad story

The movie theater is filled with children tentatively and restlessly waiting for Shark Tale to begin. The theater gets dark, and hundreds of shh's can be heard. The kids are ready for their movie, but too bad that this brilliantly animated movie was not made for children. Shark Tale was not really made for anyone, for that matter, because it fails to entertain any audience.

Even the talents of Will Smith (Oscar), Renee Zellweger (Angie), Angelina Jolie (Lola), Martin Scorsese (Sykes), Jack Black (Lenny) and Robert De Niro (Lino) could not make up for the disgustingly typical plot. Two fish are in love, and one becomes famous and forgets who he really is because superficial things distract him. Finally, some bad guys are thrown in with their moronic sidekicks as extra distractions for the main characters.

Though the animation draws kids to this movie, its content is not child-appropriate. A movie for children should not have adult problems, which are still not funny just because fish are made to look "sexy" or "ugly" with human smiles and eye shadow.

The children in the audience sit in utter silence as words flash across the screen such as "Jessica Shrimpson" and "Cod Stewart." "Maybe I can be a fish slayer and they'll never see it coming," says Lenny the Shark. Most sharks eat fish, but Lenny happens to be a vegetarian. This line, which is about the funniest in the movie, did not even get a giggle from the kids, who only found shark farts and shouting amusing.

For a more mature audience, this movie was still too predictable to be funny. Director Vicky Jenson, who made her debut with the well-known and profitable movie Shrek, did not find the same success with Shark Tale.

However, this movie did do a good job satirizing today's society with fish versions of MTV cribs, GAP, sushi bars, horse races and Krispy Kreme donuts. When Oscar becomes famous, he performs in commercials and is put on billboards as a popular star engaging in endorsements. Lola, the seductive fish, likes Oscar for his money alone. Shark Tale even has "rasta" jellyfish and a mafia of sharks, just what every community needs. All of the food products, media and money in this underwater world are sadly exactly what a lot of our society lives for.

By the end of the movie, this terrible drama of sea animals made a child start crying. The family of sharks in the mafia was fighting, and apparently, it looked so real, that the kid couldn't handle it. Congratulations DreamWorks, your scary sharks look real.

In the ending scene, the car wash that cleans whales and all the barnacles that go along with them give the finishing touches of lame flavor to this movie. Of course, the car wash theme song is playing while fish looking like Christina Aguilera and Missy Elliot are singing. After seeing some of today's stars as fish, one can be thankful to go home.

Shark Tale is rated PG for some mild language and crude humor. Running Time: 90 minutes