Movie Review: Finding Dory

Finding Dory/Rated PG/Pixar Animation/97 min./Dir. by Andrew Stanton and Angus Maclane

In all honesty, I wasn't chomping at the bit for a sequel to Finding Nemo.  The first was so perfectly conceived and resolved that a sequel seemed entirely unnecessary, not to mention fiscally motivated (The sequel was greenlit after director Andrew Stanton's first live-action film, John Carter, crashed at the box-office.  It is rumored that a Finding Nemo sequel was among the requirements for Stanton to ever direct another live-action film for the studio).

After having seen it, I can say that it still doesn't feel entirely necessary, but I am happy that it exists. For all the anger and cynicism in the world, we can certainly use this warm, funny, joyful return to Pixar's underwater gang.

Taking place one year after Finding Nemo, Dory shows that clownfish Marlin, his son Nemo, and their blue tang best friend, Dory, have been living a pretty comfortable life back at the coral reef.  Sure, Marlin and Nemo have the occasional sleepless nights trying to keep their memory-challenged friend from wandering off into the void of the sea, but it's something they're happy to do for the fish who was so willing to sacrifice for them.  However, after Dory starts to have short flashbacks to her younger home life, she becomes obsessed with the thought that her parents are still alive and she must find them.  After initial resistance, Marlin realizes that helping Dory find her family is the right thing to do, so the three of them set off on another adventure.

The first 15 minutes or so of Dory feel disappointingly familiar as it seems to be setting up a beat-for-beat remake of the first film with return visits from the ocean-surfing turtles and another attack from a mysterious beast (this time a squid instead of a anglerfish), which feels less like dramatic tension and more like nostalgic padding of the running time.  However, once the fish find their way to a marine rescue park in California, the film grows into it's own pacing and vibe completely independent of the first film.

It's here that we meet new friends, like Hank, the octopu......excuse me, septopus (wonderfully voiced by Ed O'Neill), a deliriously creative character that uses his camouflage to often hilarious results, Destiny (Kaitlin Olsen), a short-sighted whale shark that turns out to be a friend from Dory's past, and Bailey (Ty Burrell), a beluga whale who is pretending to be injured so he doesn't have to leave the marina.  These characters are fun additions voiced with verve.

Of course, it's the titular blue tang who owns the movie and, as was the case with Finding Nemo, Ellen Degeneres proves a perfect combination of humor and heart.  In the first film, Dory's handicap of short-term memory loss was played mostly for laughs, but here it is presented as the heartbreaking hardship that it really would be and Degeneres fills the scenes detailing her struggle with such sincerity that it's impossible not to empathize with the isolation such an issue would create.  In addition, the scenes showing Dory as a child are beautifully voiced by Sloane Murray with pitch-perfect innocence and desire to do what's right through the fog of her ever shifting memory.

As is the case with every Pixar film, Dory is a visual wonder.  However, unlike their last effort, The Good Dinosaur, it's so much more than beautiful to look at.  There is a huge heart to this film and a wonderful message about finding our way in the world regardless of the obstacles we may be called to face.  Also, in the final act, the story takes a delightful shift into fast-paced visual comedy with a finale that is bizarre, hilarious, and still very sincerely character based.

The look of these films was so memorably established in Finding Nemo that a sequel can't help but suffer by comparison simply because of familiarity, not to mention some opening sequences that feel lazily derivative of what came before.  However, I'm happy to report that in the world of Pixar sequels, Finding Dory is one of the best.  While it lacks the narrative brilliance of the Toy Story sequels, it is far closer to that level of quality than it is to a Cars 2 or even a Monsters University and is a warm, funny, memorable addition to the Pixar canon.  

Grade: A-

P.S. - The short in front of the film, Piper, is utterly delightful.  Make sure you get there on time because you will definitely not want to miss it.

P.P.S. - Stay tuned to after the credits for a couple funny callbacks to new and familiar characters.