Finding Dory
Directed by: Andrew Stanton.
Written by: Andrew Stanton and Victoria
Strouse & Bob Peterson based on characters created by Andrew Stanton.
Starring: Ellen DeGeneres (Dory), Albert
Brooks (Marlin), Ed O'Neill (Hank), Kaitlin Olson (Destiny), Hayden Rolence (Nemo),
Ty Burrell (Bailey), Diane Keaton (Jenny), Eugene Levy (Charlie), Sloane Murray
(Young Dory), Idris Elba (Fluke), Dominic West (Rudder), Bob Peterson (Mr.
Ray), Kate McKinnon (Wife Fish), Bill Hader (Husband Fish - Stan), Sigourney
Weaver (Sigourney Weaver)..
Pixar’s best movies, and 2003’s
Finding Nemo is certainly one of them, are able to speak to both children and
their parents on different levels at the same time. At their best, Pixar avoids
the cheap way other companies animated films – like, say, Dreamworks, accomplish
this, which is basically including two types of scenes – one aimed at kids,
that parents may suffer through, and ones aimed at adults, that go over the
children’s heads. Pixar does things different – the craft beautiful looking
films, filled with recognizable emotion that speaks to both children and their
parents. Finding Nemo did this as well as any Pixar film ever has – perhaps better
than most, because it really is about parents and their children – how parents
want to protect their children from the real dangers out there, but also need
to let go, and let them become themselves. In Marlin’s journey to find his lost
son Nemo – and Nemo’s struggle to grow up – the film speaks powerfully to
everyone in the audience.
The long awaited for sequel,
Finding Dory, attempts to do something very similar, even if the situation is
essentially flipped. It’s a year after the first film, and now it’s Dory – the fish
with short term memory loss that helped Marlin on his journey in the first film
– who needs to go on a journey herself. Flashes of memory are returning to her –
and she is determined to head out and find her parents. As fearful as Marlin is,
he agrees to help her on her journey. Most of the film takes place inside a
Marine Park – nicer than SeaWorld, since their goal is to help the sea life
back into the ocean when they are healed – where Dory remembers she is from.
Most of the movie has Dory separated from Marlin and Nemo – who spend their
time trying to get into the park, which Dory was able to do easily, and find
her. Dory is mainly teamed up with Hank – an Octopus, with only seven arms (so,
as septopus, as the movie points out) – as she tries to make her way to the
exhibit her parents should be in – and Hank tries to find a way onto the truck
bound for Cleveland – he has no interest in returning to the ocean.
That Finding Dory doesn’t reach
the heights of its predecessor is probably to be expected – even Pixar, with
its excellent track record has struggled making sequels to their films – with
all second installments to their films never living up to the first films, with
the exception of the Toy Story films (sorry, Toy Story 3 is clearly the best of
that trilogy). This is hardly a Pixar specific problem, and it should be said
that they still do sequels better than most (Monsters University, I find is
particularly under-rated). Finding Dory would be a triumph for almost any other
American animation studio – and the fact that it’s only really good Pixar
instead of great Pixar, speaks more to the heights the studio has reached, not
so much the quality of the film itself. The film is beautifully animated – the technology
has clearly improved since Finding Nemo, and the water looks better that ever.
Finding Dory is also another example at how Pixar is the best in the business
at creating animated action sequences – there are many moments of Hank and Dory
getting from one tank to another, dodging and weaving around obstacles, and
staying hidden that work brilliantly – as does a sequence involved fish chasing
a truck down on a highway (and they don’t even have to rely on an inlet or
fjord to do so) a la Knight Boat.
What ends up holding back
Finding Dory from true Pixar greatness, is that I think the film places more
emphasis on the action and the comedy aspects of the film – again, both are top
notch – than on the dramatic, emotional pull that is present in their best
work. The movie spends so much time with Dory and Hank getting from one exhibit
to the next – or with Marlin and Nemo, trying to get into the park in the first
place (not to mention some hilarious sequences involving sea lions – poor Gerald)
– that that emotional thrust is shunted to the background far too often in the
film. It doesn’t help that it’s Dory who is responsible for this emotional pull
either – Ellen DeGeneres excelled in the first film, in a role that essentially
amounted to comic relief, but here, asked to do some more heavy lifting, he doesn’t
quite nail those dramatic moments. I was far more moved by the vocal
performance of Sloane Murray as a young Dory is flashbacks than anything DeGeneres
does. I am a sucker for Pixar – heck, I cried at The Good Dinosaur (in that
devastating moment when the two new friends find a visual way to tell each
other their parents are dead) – yet although Finding Dory had me close to tears
a few times, I never quite spilled over. Not every Pixar movie needs to leave
me in a puddle on the floor – like poor Bing Bong did in Inside Out – although that
has always been at least a part of their charm.
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