Made by the same creators as the Shrek movies, this movie focuses on 2 different characters.

There is a fish named Oscar, who feels like he is worthless, living at the bottom of the reef. He yearns to live at the top of the reef, where the more popular fish reside.

Then there is Lenny, a young man shark who is vegetarian. But his father is strongly against it, and is forcing him to be a real shark by eating meat.

At some point, Lenny is being forced to be a predator to Oscar. But he is quietly resisting – only for his brother is killed by an anchor.

To gain popularity, Oscar claims that he defeated that shark and is a shark slayer.

Below are the biggest parts that stand out to me and why:

1: A vegetarian shark

Even though a shark in real life could not survive a vegetarian diet, I admired the idea of Lenny avoiding meat. It sets up for a believable and relatable family dynamic: everybody follows the family’s traditions and rules… except for one. And everyone else is against them and forces them to be like the rest of the family, even if they don’t want to.

Disney has done this a lot with their movies since the 2010s. It’s nice to see that Dreamworks used this trope before Disney became very heavily committed to it.

2: A coral reef looking like a city 

Just a year before in 2003, Disney and Pixar had released Finding Nemo – where authenticity mattered a lot when it came to portraying the coral reef and different parts of the ocean. In fact, the creative teams had to do a lot of research on the ocean and what lies under it.

But Dreamworks took an oppositional approach. Unlike in Finding Nemo, the reef in Shark Tale is very much like a city in the human world. That is because they were intending it to be a parody of New York City.

3: Orcas with the sharks

In real life, orcas will eat pretty much anything in the ocean. That includes seals, dolphins, and even sharks. That is why they are also called killer whales.

Yet in this movie, they live among and hang around the sharks. But but both the orcas and sharks are parodies of a mafia. Therefore, the filmmakers decide to ignore real biology and anthropomorphize the killer whales and sharks.

4: The pop culture and brand references 

Because the reef is supposed to be a parody of New York City, there are a lot of pop culture and real brand name references.

For example, there is a Fish King, an obvious parody of Burger King. And there is a female fish reporter named Katie Current – clearly inspired by the real Katie Couric. Not surprisingly, she voiced Katie Current.

Conclusion

So, there you have it. Note that even though this film is family-friendly, it has a lot of references to the crime film, The Godfather – which is rated R.

However, many kids likely will enjoy it as is. When I watched this as a child, I had no idea about the references to The Godfather. Yet I enjoyed it.