It's strange how many animated films there are about anthropomorphic fish. A Fish Tale, Shark Tale, Finding Nemo and the SpongeBob SquarePants movie. A Fish Tale about a trio of children accidentally transformed into fish by a mad scientist. Finding Nemo about an anthropomorphic clownfish traumatized by his wife's death who becomes comically overprotective of his son Nemo but must learn the lesson about how dangerous it is to create a risk-free environment. Shark Tale about a fish who takes credit for killing a Great White Shark to become famous and finds himself on the wrong side of an underwater mafia. SpongeBob SquarePants about an anthropomorphic sea sponge who works at a fast food restaurant owned by a Crab alongside an octopus cashier, whose best friend is a starfish and has to thwart an evil plan by a plankton. I mention this knowing that there are so many cartoons anthropomorphizing land animals that no one questions it because with underwater films people still do. Pixar cried foul when DreamWorks made A Shark Tale accusing it of plagiarizing Finding Nemo (even though Shark Tale was in production first). While the British film critic YouTuber Phantom Strider accused A Fish Tale of having ripped off A Shark Tale. Personally, I would be quite surprised if that were the case given that A Fish Tale came out four years earlier.
The fundamental problem with Shark Tale was how unlikable its protagonist Oscar was and how easily forgiven he is for his lies at the end. Fortunately, this is not that movie.
The cartoon does a good job in showing how Fly is an intelligent character despite his impulsive nature (I'm sure Fly is supposed to be a nickname but it's not clear what his real name is supposed to be but that's a nitpick). And the movie does a good job contrasting the characters of Fly and Chuck (and rendering them both immensely sympathetic by showing how protective they are of Stella). While Professor MacKrill is an entertaining character and the late Alan Rickman gave it his all as the villainous Joe the Pilot Fish. Also, when Fly is wounded and has his emotional breakdown where he's on the verge of giving up it's hard not to feel sympathy for him. And I like Chuck's character development.
The Climax where Fly outwits Joe was a great scene though the "using my brain for once" didn't really work as his character development given he was great and manipulating people (and fish) into doing what he wanted throughout the film. I do appreciate that his injury isn't instantaneously reversed when his transformation is, though the last minute scene where Chuck thinks Fly is dead but we the audience know he isn't is a bit contrived. As is the scene wherein Fly just happens to have the right arsenal of tools Chuck needs to escape. But I am fine with the scene where they find the ingredients because the song was explicitly created to make the ingredients easier to remember so there it's just that the song is working. The epilogue seems tacked on and there really wasn't any reason for the movie to be a musical (with two songs sung by the characters) and the song Help! I'm a Fish doesn't do anything for me at all. Even so, it is a children's movie and (despite Joe's onscreen death as a human) manages to do well in that department. So it's a decent film. That said it doesn't dethrone Finding Nemo (and yes, I know A Fish Tale was filmed first.)
So, it was better than A Shark Tale but not as good as Finding Nemo.
The fundamental problem with Shark Tale was how unlikable its protagonist Oscar was and how easily forgiven he is for his lies at the end. Fortunately, this is not that movie.
The cartoon does a good job in showing how Fly is an intelligent character despite his impulsive nature (I'm sure Fly is supposed to be a nickname but it's not clear what his real name is supposed to be but that's a nitpick). And the movie does a good job contrasting the characters of Fly and Chuck (and rendering them both immensely sympathetic by showing how protective they are of Stella). While Professor MacKrill is an entertaining character and the late Alan Rickman gave it his all as the villainous Joe the Pilot Fish. Also, when Fly is wounded and has his emotional breakdown where he's on the verge of giving up it's hard not to feel sympathy for him. And I like Chuck's character development.
The Climax where Fly outwits Joe was a great scene though the "using my brain for once" didn't really work as his character development given he was great and manipulating people (and fish) into doing what he wanted throughout the film. I do appreciate that his injury isn't instantaneously reversed when his transformation is, though the last minute scene where Chuck thinks Fly is dead but we the audience know he isn't is a bit contrived. As is the scene wherein Fly just happens to have the right arsenal of tools Chuck needs to escape. But I am fine with the scene where they find the ingredients because the song was explicitly created to make the ingredients easier to remember so there it's just that the song is working. The epilogue seems tacked on and there really wasn't any reason for the movie to be a musical (with two songs sung by the characters) and the song Help! I'm a Fish doesn't do anything for me at all. Even so, it is a children's movie and (despite Joe's onscreen death as a human) manages to do well in that department. So it's a decent film. That said it doesn't dethrone Finding Nemo (and yes, I know A Fish Tale was filmed first.)
So, it was better than A Shark Tale but not as good as Finding Nemo.