Finding Dory picks up a year after the events of the first movie. Blue tang fish Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) is out on a field trip with a class of fish when she suddenly gets a memory of her parents. Along with Marlin and Nemo (Albert Brooks and Hayden Rolence), she travels across the ocean and ends up at the Marine Life Institute. There, with the help of surly octopus Hank (Ed O’Neill) and a bunch of other marine animals, she navigates the aquarium and gains glimpses into her past, all of it hopefully leading to a reunion with her family.
The film largely continues one of the major themes of the first movie: that our limitations don’t define us. In the same way that Nemo’s underdeveloped fin didn’t keep him from becoming a strong swimmer, Dory’s short-term memory loss doesn’t keep her from finding a way to her parents. If this sounds a rehash, that’s because it kind of is. Marlin even goes through essentially the same arc with Dory that he had with his son. But working within this formula, the film still manages to be funny, exciting and heartfelt. This sequel doesn’t reinvent the wheel, and while that’s not quite as exciting as a completely original property, Finding Dory still holds up a tradition of quality that we’ve come to expect from this particular animation studio.
The story is a little more frantic this time, perhaps reflecting the personality of its new central character. The Marine Life Institute is a collection of different environments, and Dory and the other characters end up zipping through one peril after another. But the movie is also smart enough to slow down for major emotional beats. And in the Pixar tradition, it isn’t afraid to get dark, to touch on complex emotional territory. There is a scene in here where Dory is made contemplate the unthinkable, and the direction puts the sequence in a bracing first-person perspective that really highlights the depth of what is being felt.
The animation is beautiful, of course, but the new setting doesn’t quite provide as many opportunities for the stunning ocean visuals of the first movie. The craft of it is still very evident, but the new environments (hallways, quarantine lab) make the movie look drab in comparison. The climactic set piece feels like a step too far, as well. One accepts a certain amount of absurdity in these animated films, of course. This a movie full of talking fish, after all. But what happens in the final act still feels a little hard to swallow, and it might even be perceived as irresponsible.
But it’s hard to argue with what the film eventually accomplishes. This is just a lovely film all around, offering a positive outlook of the world that every person should really experience. The film itself seems to take on the person of its central character, beautifully brought to life with the vocal performance of Ellen DeGeneres. Dory is one of the sweetest characters ever written, and DeGeneres makes that sweetness infectious. All of the characters are deeply human, and this terrific voice cast, which now includes the likes of Eugene Levy, Diane Keaton, Ed O’Neill, Dominic Wiest and Idris Elba, lets that shine through.
Finding Dory is a touch less endearing than the first film, and probably a notch below Pixar’s best. Having said that, it’s just so hard to go wrong with a film that bursts with so much heart. The curve is broken when it comes to animated films. A subpar Pixar movie at this point still means required viewing for the average moviegoer. It would be wrong to deprive one’s self of this particular brand of loveliness.
My Rating:
