THE REEF (SHARK BAIT)
US, 2006, 77 minutes, Colour.
Voices of: Freddie Prinze Jr, Rob Schneider, Evan Rachel Wood, Donald Logue, Fran Drescher, John Rhys- Davies, R. Lee Ermey, Andy Dick.
Directed by Howard E. Baker and John Fox.
The popularity of Finding Nemo meant that audiences were comfortable with animated films set under the surface of the ocean. It was a pleasing film of a lost son and the search by his father – and there were a lot of comic characters both in the sea and in the dentist’s waiting room fish tank in Sydney. Then came Shark’s Tale which was popular enough but a bit too adult in its plot, characters and references to the movies, especially gangster movies with Robert de Niro and a Martin Scorsese lookalike fish.
The Reef is much more simple than both these films but is clearly indebted to Finding Nemo. And its original title was Shark Bait. The Reef is a better title because that is where the orphaned Pi (voiced by Freddie Prinze) takes refuge from the net that took his parents in Boston harbour. Some friendly dolphins take care of him. At the reef, he sees the love of his life, Cordelia, all pink (voiced by Even Rachel Wood) being photographed by divers. But, a nasty young shark Troy (voiced by Donal Logue) is also infatuated with her and confronts Pi.
There are several old fish codgers around and a walrus, several voiced by Rob Schneider. Pi’s oddball aunt has the unmistakeable voice of Fran Drescher.
Of course, we can imagine the rest. Love triumphs and Troy finishes up in the net.
The film was criticised as being derivative of the other films. I’m not sure the very young audience I saw it with wanted to make these film criticism connections. Rather, they seemed rapt – and not going out to toilet breaks. In its less sophisticated way, it was entertaining the littlies. Which is what it intended to do.
1.The appeal of the film? The animation and its style? The story and characters? The situations? - for very young audiences?
2.The title, the focus on the reef (and the alternate title: Shark Bait)?
3.The voices, the talent, the comic style? The correspondence to the look of the characters?
4.The opening in Boston Harbour, the dirt and squalor of the contemporary harbour? The fear of the net? Pi and his parents, love for them, their wanting him to go out into the ocean, to the reef? Their being taken by the net? The dread of the net? Allowing Pi to escape? Urging him to go to his aunt?
5.Pi and his meeting the dolphins? Percy and his mother? Their kindness, taking Pi away in his grief? Swimming to the reef?
6.Finding the reef? The beauty of the coral? The wide variety of the fish? The comic old characters? The walrus? Looking for his Aunt Pearl?
7.His swimming and finding Cordelia, her being all in pink, her posing for the photos, the director helping her, criticising Pi for intervening? The irony of the human divers and their taking photographs of Cordelia? Picture and his being smitten?
8.Cordelia, her character, the heroine? Nice – and pink? With Pi, talking together, their falling in love?
9.Aunt Pearl, Fran Drescher’s voice and the comedy? Meeting her son? His eccentricity? Love for his mother? Pi and his finding family?
10.Life on the reef, the range of fish, the comic situations – and voices? Old Nerissa? His friends?
11.Troy as villain, the shark, his voice, comic? Yet sinister? The confrontation with Pi? His love for Cordelia? Their confrontations? The chases, Pi and his being smart, getting Troy to chase him and catching him in the coral, in the ravines? The final confrontation? Everybody helping Pi? The walrus? Troy and his being captured by the net?
12.The happy ending, Pi with Cordelia? Pearl and her son and his heroics? The other fish on the reef? The happy life in the sea?
