‘Seefood’ is a Malaysian production. It is Malaysia’s first animated film and shall not be missed by the locals for some feedbacks. I have watched this last week and I am quite amazed by the quality of the film which is given the title of ‘Sea Level’ in United States. Yes, this film is released months earlier in over 90 countries and that marks the success of the film going international and widely acceptable. I am proud that finally Malaysia made an impact, eventhough a small one, but a good start on the international film industry rather than just concentrating on typical Malay films. It’s the time to go international for local productions.
The language spoken on this film is in English, and I’m happy of that. It rises the standard of this local production and internationalizing it. The setting of the film is something similar to ‘Finding Nemo’ which is quite a successful animated Hollywood film many years ago. However, there is something extra for ‘Seefood’ as beautiful tropical features are added to give a local and unique feel and backdrop to the film, like the villages by the beach, wide area of farming, wau (Malaysian kite), etc. The underwater imagery is not very appealing. More works needed to be done to improve on that.
For the story which is about Pup, a small fish that discovers human poachers are stealing eggs from his reef. As he leaves the sea to rescue the eggs he’ll enter the dangerous world of humans. He is accompanied by some of his friends as well as facing some resistance from the humans on the land and a group of evil underwater creatures. Well, the story sounds interesting, but it is too typical indeed. There is no new things or any twists or surprises to the story. Instead, the story went into a weird direction with involvement of machine to help the shark to walk on land to save Pup. That is a bit ridiculous. Extra creativity is needed. So, overall, the story isn’t very good. I thought there would be a massive attack by the underwater creatures as planned on early part of the film, but ended up, nothing exciting happens and that clash part went off so quick. Huh…
The first half of the film is quite plain and boring. All the characters have been shown, and after such a long time, there is still no action yet. Ahh…wasting time. The only funny thing I can find is the group of chickens as supporting characters in the film. Then, as soon as climax begins when the shark went on to the land on his mission to save Pup, I thought it would be exciting, but turns out to be the other way round. The climax is made to be ‘too-intended’ for us to get interested. For the animation quality, I can say it is very good already eventhough to be honest, it is still not up to the level of standard Hollywood animated pictures. At first I didn’t believe that a Malaysia production could create animation of this quality which is already very much acceptable. Overall, it is still a worth-watching film that provides a bit of fun and entertainment. It is a very good start and move in animated feature by Malaysia production. I rate ‘Seefood’ a total of 6.5.
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