94% on Rotten Tomatoes
Chloe's thoughts: Signed, sealed and recommended by Chloe; Watch it in cinemas
Watch it if you: Are a fan of Disney/Pixar (who isn't, though); Want to watch a fun movie with lots of laughs to be had
13 years after our beloved Finding Nemo was gifted unto humanity, we finally have a sequel!
It's been about a year since Marlin and Dory travelled across the ocean to find and rescue Nemo, and now Dory is starting to remember her parents. Overwhelmed by this sudden resurgence of childhood memories and this new and strange feeling of missing someone, Dory sets out to travel across the ocean again, this time to seek out her parents.
Yup, so this film should really be called Finding Dory's Parents, but I guess we are also trying to find Dory's identity, so I'll let that slide.
I actually went into the movie with really low expectations. The trailer didn't seem that great, and I was really wary of the studio making a sequel for the sake of having a sequel. It's always worrying when studios announce sequels since you have to wonder whether there's a need for a sequel, or just a need for money. More often than not, it's unfortunately the latter. Sure, you can say that it's Pixar and Pixar's always great, but you cannot deny that there have been bad sequels (looking at you, Cars 2), and you can see most recently with The Good Dinosaur, which I haven't seen but have heard not-so-great reviews about, that even their originals aren't guaranteed success anymore.
But despite my reservations about the film, I was still pretty hyped for it, and it turns out... it was a great film! It wasn't as great as Finding Nemo, but I think it comes real close.
This film definitely did have it's own story to tell,and it was a great story with great morals about trusting your instinct, persisting in the face of helplessness, thinking outside the box to create new ways to solve problems, home, family, and even... belonging (oh, Advanced English, you didn't think I could forget you so easily, did you?). It actually wasn't just milking the franchise, it was adding to it, which made me so extremely happy! Now all I have to do is just wait for The Incredibles 2...
So first things first, LOOK HOW ADORABLE BABY DORY IS!!!
JUST LOOK AT THAT!!! I WANT ONE! (Although in all seriousness, don't go and buy yourself a Blue Tang and make the whole species extinct. Finding Nemo, despite it's message that fish belong in the ocean and not in our fish tanks, resulted in the endangerment of the Clownfish.)
But yes, Baby Dory is so cute, and the animation in general for this film was done really really well. I mean, there was no crazy beautiful jellyfish scene (by the way, go check out this amazing TED talk done by one of the animators working on that jellyfish scene), but I was so blown away by the animation for Hank the Octopus. It was simply AMAZING! The way they made him move and camouflage was so fluid and fantastic. In fact, they spent two years working on him, with one whole year spent just to develop the proper program to make him move like an actual octopus, according to the animators. One great scene, though, was when they showed this huge tank of fish... the animation on that just blew my mind because it was SO STUNNING!
The film was also really funny. Dory seems like the obvious choice for a sequel since she's the most likeable character of Finding Nemo, but remember, she's also pretty annoying. However, Ellen was perfect voicing Dory, and they managed to flesh out her character so that we really rooted for her and we didn't find her annoying at all! I also loved the new characters they brought in. Since we have the characters and personalities of the original trio down pat, the film was really able to solidly define the personalities of these new characters, and that really helped. Ty Burrell was fantastic as Bailey, and Ed O'Neill is back at it again with his typical grumpy-yet-endearing role. Even Idris Elba has a role in this, making a Disney-animal-voice hat-trick for him. I'm particularly intrigued by Hank the Octopus though, and if they HAD to do a sequel or spin-off (although please, Disney, don't), I'd be interested to see Hank's backstory, as he seems to be a really interesting character with a dark and sad past.
One thing that this film did really well was that it had a lot of elements, but managed to tie them all together in a way that made sense. Because a lot of major plot elements of the film are told in flashback, we get little snippets of Dory's memories that could have been really confusing, but they managed to only reveal what was necessary at each time point, and then they made sense of all of these elements towards the end. In fact, it'd be a crying shame for me to not relate this back to Memento, one of my favourite films of all time that you should go see right now! This film is almost like the Pixar version of Memento: we know nothing about the character's background, and what we do know is told in flashes and little bits that make us a bit confused until it becomes clear at the end. Of course, there's no trippy Nolan-esque mindblow at the end, but they managed to capture the essence of anterograde amnesia quite well.
And because of all these important little elements, the film is pretty fast paced. There aren't that many moments for you to get bored, but it also wasn't too overwhelming. In fact, I think they paced it quite well. It's 1 hour and 45 minutes long, and this was the perfect length for the film. It wasn't too short, and it wasn't too long. It does actually pick up really slowly, as the film takes time to ground itself, but I think that was alright because we did need that backstory on why Dory starts thinking about her family, even if the first 20 minutes or so weren't the most interesting. One thing that does come as a result of this fast-paced nature of the film is that it doesn't quite tug at your heart strings that much. There is one moment that hits you and you tear up, but I didn't cry at all in this film and that is saying a lot because I cry at EVERYTHING!
And so the film is also quite predictable. It's a standard Pixar film following the Pixar formula well, and while it does a good feels trip, it doesn't really make the stakes high enough for us to be too concerned. In particular, there is a scene towards the end that is 100% completely unbelievable. To the point where there seems to be absolutely zero stakes because of how unbelievably well our main characters are controlling the situation. But hey, if I can believe that a rat can control a guy by pulling onto his hair, as if his hair roots are somehow embedded into the nerves in his brain, then I can believe some of the stuff that happens in this film.
So overall, this was a pretty great time. It was a fun family movie that doesn't quite make as big of a statement as Inside Out did, but it serves as a well done sequel to the classic Finding Nemo that we loved. I can truly say that the 8-year-old Chloe that never seemed to grow up is rather quite pleased right now.
A few side notes:
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