Disney/Pixar
Thirteen years ago (yes, thirteen!), Pixar touched hearts and made a boatload of money with its family adventure tale Finding Nemo, the story of a child clown fish separated from his father and the lengths his dad and fish friends went to to find him. One of the characters introduced that became a fan favorite was blue tang fish Dory, voiced perfectly by Ellen DeGeneres. Dory’s addled forgetfulness was offset by a constantly cheerful personality that won over audiences young and old.
Now Dory is the star of her own film that explores more of her backstory as a child which serves to set this film’s adventure in motion. The title is a bit of a misnomer though, as it is Dory who is searching for her parents (but Marlin and Nemo do also have to find Dory when they get separated, but that is more a subplot). The film opens with Dory pining for the parents she lost as a very young child and her valiant attempts to remember even where she came from. Hoping that others will help jog her memory, she sets out across the ocean to find her home and her family, Marlin and Nemo in tow. Along the way, she befriends Hank the octopus (or septopus since he only has seven tentacles) who may know where she came from, but all he wants is to be taken to the aquarium in Cleveland. The two form an unlikely partnership and get assistance from others at the marine institute in California. Laughs are to be had, heartstrings are to be tugged, and even a tear or two will be shed. What else could you want from a Pixar movie?
Finding Dory does have many laugh-out-loud moments, even if they harken back to the original movie, but it’s also quite sad when we get into the backstory of Dory. Even as an adorable child (with huge, emotion-filled eyes), Dory has be stricken with short term memory loss. We see her wanting to play with the other fish, but her parents worry that she’ll forget where she lives so they attempt to play hide and seek to keep her occupied (except the poor thing can’t even remember how to count to ten). When young Dory worries that she may even forget her parents, you can’t help but get filled with emotion. The younger kids watching the movie may not understand all of this, but it packs an emotional punch for the older crowd.
And while it’s a fun ride with Dory as she tries to put together all the pieces of where her home is, the constant forgetting can also get a little maddening. Luckily, the introduction of the increasingly frustrated Hank gives Dory a lot to play off of, and he is sure to become a new favorite character. Ed O’Neill does a great job voicing the character, so much so that you may not even realize it’s him. Also featured among the talented voice cast are Albert Brooks (returning as Marlin), Kaitlin Olson, Ty BUrrell, Diane Keaton, Eugene Levy, Kate McKinnon, Bill Hader and Sigourney Weaver. Fans of HBO’s The Wire will get a kick out of Idris Elba and Dominic West playing a pair of sleepy but belligerent sea lions. There are also two unvoiced characters, a bird named Becky and another sea lion, that pretty much steal the show.
The movie itself looks stunning as you would expect from Pixar, and the 3D process adds some depth to the undersea vistas but nothing really pops off of the screen all that much. If you’re a fan of Finding Nemo, the you’re sure to enjoy the familiarity of the characters and story of Finding Dory. Be sure to stay all the way through the credits for a pretty lengthy coda.
Featured with Finding Dory is the charming Pixar short Piper which follows the first days in the life of a newly hatched sandpiper exploring its new world on the beach and learning how to navigate the incoming waves while trying to find food buried beneath the sand. The hatchling is just adorable, and the short features the most amazingly photo-realistic CGI to date. It’s a real delight.
Share this post
