If the animated story of a vegetarian shark and his fishy pals sounds familiar – it should. Nemo introduced three white pointers trying to beat their addiction to fish-flesh. Now there’s Shark Tale in which Lenny (Jack Black), to the horror of his gangster father (Robert De Niro), is a fish-loving vegan who likes to dress up as a dolphin. You see Lenny is, well, different but his Dad wants him to run the family business. Instead, he runs away and into the fins of Oscar (Will Smith), a fast-talking whale-washer who dreams of life at the top of the reef. They hatch a plan and Oscar becomes a celebrity shark-slayer. This frenetic hybrid of Carwash, The Godfather and Finding Nemo makes up for its inspirational shortcoming by introducing a clever line in parody. But each joke, although there are many, has a short shelf-life leaving the film to run on the liberal charm of Smith, Black and Renee Zellwegger.

Writers Michael Wilson (Ice Age) and newcomer Rob Letterman generate enough sass to keep both adults and kids amused but ironically, Shark Tale lacks bite. It also creates a line in animation. Toy Story broke new ground that was subsequently cultivated by Monsters Inc., Shrek and Nemo. While Shark Tale is a beautiful blur of effortless movement, the story is not a patch on its inspired antecedents. The film is promoted as a wonder-child from the creators of Shrek but these are the people who also produced snoozy animations like El Dorado and Spirit. Hopefully they’ll remember before writing Shark Tale 2 (2006) that clever visuals are of themselves, never, ever enough.

// COLIN FRASER