A big brute of a shark named “Bruce” chases an orange clownfish named “Nemo” around the Reef…oh wait…wrong film…

Don’t. Just don’t… You may Be tempted to… but don’t.

Seriously, This is a difficult review for me because it is tough for me to say such negative things about a film that so many people obviously worked hard to make. We have all had our fair share of projects that have been long, difficult and uninspired, and I feel that for many of the artists, this is one of those films. I will say that the good stuff in this film is all visual. There are a few moments that really look very nice. These moments are few and far between, but they were enough to keep me going to the end.

Now the bad. Actually, there is a whole lot of bad and I really don’t know where to start.

The acting is phoned in, The animation ranges from passable to horrendous, but usually its just mostly horrible. The music sounds canned as do the sound effects. The jokes all fall flat and some just simply do not make any sense at all. And the characters themselves are all @$$#%!$ and are horrible examples for children. Thats all little stuff, and I could go on, but I am starting to feel the urge to punch myself.

The worst offender of all of this mess, however, is the plot itself. The rest can almost be forgiving if you are expecting to watch a low-budget Straight-to-DVD Movie for children, however the plot is perhaps the most glaringly correctable and therefore least forgivable mistake in the whole film.

Take the plot from Finding Nemo and Shark Tale and then smash them together and you get The Reef. This film is not just inspired by the last two Fish films, it is a complete and utter rip-off. Why in Gods name would anyone ever do something like this? I mean, I get it, the producers are trying to make money off of the popularity of the other films, They’re banking on the hopes that people are just going to assume its as good as the others or, even worse, They are trying to confuse people and trick them into picking up this film instead of the originals. Its really shady and in my book, completely unforgettable.

Had this film had an original plot, I would have been far more likely to give it a favorable review. Of course, I most likely would have completely ignored it in the first place and I you would not be reading this right now. The only reason I picked it up, and the only reason it has been getting any kind of exposure at all is because it is a flaming rip off of better films. And so I guess, when it’s all said and done, it doesn’t matter what I or anyone else thinks. They have already won.

This film gets one star. And now I will move on with my life.

(NOTE: The DVD has a commentary track with the director and producer and I am half tempted to watch it again just out of morbid curiosity to hear what they have to say for themselves…but then I would have to watch the film again.)