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Contains mild comic violenceThe story, filleted: Freddie Prinze Jr is an orphaned fish who escapes his polluted home to find a new life on a colourful coral reef. There, he finds true love with a piscine hotty called Cordelia (Evan Rachel Wood) but before they can get down to making caviar, a nasty shark comes along to spoil things. Sound familiar? It ought to. The Reef is a cheap, poor quality knockoff of Finding Nemo and Shark Tale.
Why is there such a shortage of ideas in animation? It seems as if the moment we've seen one movie about talking rats or farmyard animals or insects or whatever, a swarm of frame-for-frame imitators descends upon the multiplex within a month. Madagascar becomes The Wild, Over The Hedge becomes Barnyard, and so on. The Reef is a particularly poor example, crossing the limpid beauty of Pixar's Nemo with a creaking Karate Kid-style plot. Pi, our fishy hero, is taught the rudiments of underwater kung fu by a grumpy turtle (voiced, bafflingly, by gross-out king Rob Schneider) so that he can beat the scales off his oversized opposition.
"THIS FISHY FLICK HAS HAD ITS CHIPS"
The animation throughout is murky and characterless, and the script is painfully lacking in anything but the most basic humour - we're talking sturgeon-instead-of-surgeon jokes here. The vocal performances are similarly unimpressive, with John Rhys-Davies especially embarassing as a waffling sea lion. Or possibly a walrus, it isn't clear. Whichever animal he is supposed to be apparently doesn't require oxygen, so best not to rely on The Reef for educational value. Anyway, this fishy flick has had its chips. Stick Nemo on the DVD instead.
The Reef is released in UK cinemas on Friday 9th February 2007.
