SYNOPSIS:
Grab your snorkel and swim on down to The Reef, a charming undersea adventure guaranteed to hook the entire family. When Pi, an orphaned fish escapes the fisherman's net to move in with his aunt on an exotic coral reef, he meets his true love, Cordelia. But before Pi can start his life with Cordelia, he must outsmart the bully tiger shark also determined to win her heart. Full of memorable characters and featuring the stellar voice talents of Freddie Prinze, Jr., Evan Rachel Wood, Rob Schneider and Fran Drescher, The Reef is a fun-filled voyage that will keep you giggling till you come up for air!
MOVIE REVIEW:
This little known animation release which is also known as "Shark Bait" is about the adventures of Pi (Freddie Prinze Jr) an orphaned fish who must defeat Troy the bully Tiger Shark in order to be with his love, Cordelia (Evan Rachel Wood who is more famous for her choice of romance partners than her indie flicks). Yup, the plot itself is wafer thin and in comparison, makes DreamWorks’ "Shark Tale" Oscar worthy.
In the 78 minutes duration, we get to see the righteous Pi spending his time romancing the lovely Cordelia, hanging out with his buddy and even gets to learn kung fu from a turtle, Nerissa (voiced by Rob 'Deuce Bigalow' Schneider who also voiced several other characters here as well).
Is there a meaningful message waiting to be unleash to the younger viewers? I doubt so. Unless you want to tell your kids it’s okay to play the hero because of a girl. And are the jokes really crack one up? Again, I doubt you will find anything worth repeating. The lines are dull and the antics bland. The animations here are even worse than the current slew of video games let alone the quality from Pixar or DreamWorks. There is plenty of supporting oceanic characters that practically left no deep impression whatsoever.
If "The Reef" comes before the superb "Finding Nemo" and the so-so "Shark Tale", it’s still forgivable to churn this out to audience. But disguising this sloppy mess as an animation for kids in 2009 is a tad deceiving. I don’t even want to delve into some of the plot points which are lifted directly from Nemo. "The Reef" ranks alongside another oceanic disaster, the locally produced "Legend of the Sea".
SPECIAL FEATURES :
There are no extra features on this Code 3 DVD.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The colour transfer is bright and clear but that only help in projecting the low-res animation more apparent to viewers. Dialogue is crisp with occasional ambience effects to stir you from dozing off.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD
RATING :
Review
by Linus Tee
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