REVIEW’S
Movie Review :
Finding dory
T
here's something perfectly on point about Finding
Dory, the pantingly anticipated sequel to Pixar's
2003 masterwork Finding Nemo, taking 13 years
to reach the screen. It stands to reason that the story
of the absent-minded fish - voiced by Ellen DeGeneres
in both films - would take its own sweet time finding its
way to audiences, because Dory herself has a tendency
to meander hither and thither, her short-term memory
challenges sending her on all manner of digressions,
doglegs and unexpected adventures.
That sense of random chance served her well in Finding
Nemo, especially juxtaposed with the far more anxious,
anally retentive Marlin (Albert Brooks). In this iteration,
however, the act begins to wear thin, as our fishy heroine seeks out the parents she was separated from as a
child, on a trek that feels both like a retread of the earlier
film and, inevitably, less novel and surprising. There's
no denying that Dory is still a delightful creature, with a
heart as big as a horseshoe crab. After a heartbreaking
flashback to her earlier trauma (reminiscent of the dire
opening sequence of Finding Nemo), the film finds her
happily ensconced with Marlin and Nemo, who have become her surrogate family. Still, she pines for the parents
she left behind and sets off for the place she vaguely
remembers she came from, which turns out to be a marine life museum in California. After a perfunctory swim
across the Pacific, during which Dory and Marlin meet
up with at least one friend from their previous epic trek,
they land at the Marine Life Institute, where the dulcet
tones of Sigourney Weaver introduce human visitors to
the wonders of the deep, and where Dory makes a series of friends who will help her reunite with her personal
blue tang clan. The most amusing of her new acquaintances is Hank (Ed O'Neill), a cranky, Lou Grant-like octopus who longs to sidestep the lab's policy of "rescue,
rehabilitation and release" and stay there forever. Slurping, sliding and bouncing from one watery exhibit to another, Dory and Hank revisit the odd-couple chemistry
of Finding Nemo, while Marlin and Nemo, having been
separated from their ditzy friend, attempt a rendezvous by way of a pair
of solicitous, Cockney-accented sea
lions and a scruffy loon named Becky.
Although the relatively dreary setting
of Finding Dory results in visuals that
aren't nearly as eye-popping as the
original film, and the story can't be
called inspired, the characterizations
and set pieces have been conceived
and executed with enough of Pixar's
signature care and imagination that
audiences, especially young ones,
will be entertained. The voice work
from DeGeneres, Brooks, O'Neill
and supporting players Weaver, Ty
Burrell, Diane Keaton, Eugene Levy
and Idris Elba is expressive and funny. And, as in the previous film, "Finding Dory" makes
some pointed, if oblique, points about the grabby, intrusive thoughtlessness of lumbering humans interacting
with the natural world - here, in the form of a "touch pool"
in which exploring hands and fingers are perceived by
the frightened marine life as incoming carpet bombs. If
a bit involving a beluga with echolocation issues grows
tiresome with repetition, a climactic scene centered on
cuddly otters more than makes up for it, just as Dory's
indefatigable optimism successfully blots out deeper
fears of death and abandonment. Finding Dory could
never completely measure up to Nemo, whose dazzling
visuals and mythic contours made it an instant, enduring
classic. (And, for the record, it gains nothing from being
shown or seen in 3-D, so families are advised to save
their money.) Still, in deciding not to stray far from the
first film in plot or tone, it makes for a pleasant, familiar,
cheerfully unassuming fish-in-her-water tale.
32 | BOOM