Finding Dory

Voices of: Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Ed O'Neill, Kaitlin Olson, Hayden Rolence, Ty Burrell, Diane Keaton, Eugene Levy, Idris Elba, Dominic West, Bob Peterson, Kate McKinnon, Bill Hader, Sigourney Weaver, Alexander Gould, John Ratzenberger, Willem Dafoe, Brad Garrett, Allison Janney, Stephen Root
Directed by: Andrew Stanton, Angus MacLane
Rating: PG
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Comedy
2016

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) goes off in search of her parents, and Marlin (Albert Brooks) reluctantly follows with Nemo.

Review:

Tim: I enjoyed Finding Nemo, but I was clearly not among its most fervent fans. It was a good movie, but I wasn't exactly in love with it. I entered Finding Dory with about the same level of expectation- I wasn't dying to see the film, but I was legitimately interested to see how the sequel would turn out. I can say now that the movie is pretty close to the original in quality. I'd still give the original the nod for victor, but this sequel got closer than I expected. Like the original movie, this one is solid and entertaining, but there wasn't enough here for me to love it.

I still think it was a questionable choice to center the movie around Dory. They had to obviously make some major changes to her character for this to work. I have to give the writers credit for figuring out a way to pull this off, and the evolution of the character (despite being incredibly convenient) made the story possible. It's an interesting study in how you can alter a character so that they fit the story you are trying to tell. That being said, Dory is a much better supporting character than a leading one, so the role reversal between her and Marlin dragged the film down a bit.

The story does continue the tradition of exploring family and friendship, which is always nice. It's a story about self discovery and self sacrifice, about doing the things you didn't believe you could do and starting to believe in yourself. Pixar is always at its best when it touches on some of these deeper themes of humanity, even when the movie is about animated fish.

The movie once again gives us a slew of different aquatic life, represented by a large number of different characters. Some get bigger roles, others smaller, and I think that's okay. Life in the ocean is incredibly diverse, so it makes sense that you'd see that diversity represented in this film. One of the standouts of the new characters is Hank, a grumbling Octopus who reluctantly helps Dory. Ed O'Neill was a perfect choice to voice the character. He definitely made a big impression. Characters like Destiny and Bailey were designed to be comedic relief, but they just didn't make as big of an impact on the story as desired. This represents the new characters very accurately- some were great and added to the film, and others were just so-so.

In addition to the previously mentioned O'Neill, the voice cast is strong. Ellen DeGeneres is great as Dory and I just love Albert Brooks as Marlin. Brooks really is the absolutely perfect choice for that role. It was fun hearing Sigourney Weaver as herself. I liked that the film cast Diane Keaton, Eugene Levy, and Idris Elba, but their impact on the film was only minimal.

I've always been a bit harder on Pixar than most people. While Finding Dory isn't destined to be an animated classic, it's another solid film from the studio. The impressive box office take is another win for Pixar and ensures we'll probably see another one of these movies at some point. I'm okay with that. This series will never be as good as Toy Story, for example, but this is an entertaining movie. It's not quite as good as the first film, but it's a very worthy sequel.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Ratatouille, Wall-E, Toy Story, Cars, Brave, The Good Dinosaur