Movie Review: Finding Dory

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.

 

Still, Finding Dory is better than any other animated film I’ve seen so far this year (Zootopia is close, but this is better) – and it may just be the best we’ll see this year. No, Finding Dory doesn’t hit the magical level that Finding Nemo did – but then again, few films do.

Movie Review: John Carter

John Carter ** ½
Directed by: Andrew Stanton.
Written by: Andrew Stanton & Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon based on the story by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Starring: Taylor Kitsch (John Carter), Lynn Collins (Dejah Thoris), Samantha Morton (Sola), Willem Dafoe (Tars Tarkas), Thomas Haden Church (Tal Hajus), Mark Strong (Matai Shang), Ciarán Hinds (Tardos Mors), Dominic West (Sab Than), James Purefoy (Kantos Kan), Bryan Cranston (Powell), Polly Walker (Sarkoja), Daryl Sabara (Edgar Rice Burroughs).

To me, John Carter is one of those rare movies that is not too long, but instead is too short. The film feels like an epic that was cut down to fit into a more manageable, audience friendly running time. Yes, it is still over two hours, but it still feels like scenes are missing – that the film jumps around a little too much. Unlike some critics, I don’t think that John Carter is confusing – it’s a pretty simple story – but it did remind me of a something Robert Evans said he said to Francis Ford Coppola on seeing his two hour cut of The Godfather (which of course, Coppola denies). I asked for an epic, and you delivered a trailer. John Carter probably would have worked better as an epic TV miniseries, or at least a three hour movie. As it stands now, the whole thing feels rushed.

The movie stars Taylor Kitsch as John Carter, a veteran on the Confederate side of the Civil War, who has spent his post war life digging all around the world, and amassing a huge fortune. He summons his nephew (Daryl Sabara) to his house, and when he arrives, he is told that Carter has suddenly died – and left everything to him. He has also left instructions to give his nephew his personal journal – which flashes back to Carter`s past and tells the story we will see. Carter, while searching for gold in the desert, discovers an amulet, which transports him to Mars. And so the adventure begins.

I liked much of John Carter, although because the stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs on which the movie is based has been so popular, and so influential, over the years, the story seems a little more clichéd than it probably did when it was written. Still, Carters journey to Mars, where he first meets the Tharks – a race of four armed, 7 foot tall, green men, who worship strength. Soon though, he is drawn into an epic war between more human Martians. I won’t get into the details of the plot – because that would take the rest of this review.

Directed by Andrew Stanton – who made two of Pixar`s greatest films in Finding Nemo and Wall-E – the movie is filled with visual imagination. I did love the look of the Tharks – and later the White apes – and the action sequences are well handled. There are battles on top of battles, and they are entertaining. The special effects are wonderful as well. The movie is also never boring, even though some may grow restless as sometimes there are long sequences without action.

But the movie has problems as well. I could have forgiven the fact that the movie seems to skimp on some details – that it feels like some scenes are missing, which would have given more weight or logic behind the decisions made by several characters. After all, perhaps it is preferable for a movie to be rushed than to be like the later Pirates of the Caribbean films that were all nearly three hours, and took a simple story, and turned it into a long, tough slog. What is more unforgivable is the casting choices, which don’t make much sense.

The biggest problem is John Carter himself – Taylor Kitsch. He is supposed to be a grizzled, Civil War veteran, and instead, he looks like an underwear model. Watching the film, I couldn’t help but think of two former movie heroes – Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name in the Sergio Leone spaghetti Westerns, and Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. Carter seems like he should be a little older, a little more grizzled, a little more cynical – and Kitsch is simply wrong for the role. I never quite bought him in the role. Lynn Collins fairs slightly better – as the heroine, a Princess on Mars who is being forced by her father to marry her people’s biggest enemy to ensure peace. She is feisty and beautiful, and yet her role is one of those that feels underwritten. Ciarian Hinds, as her father, is wasted and given nothing to do. Domenic West, as the bad guy, is far too one note to be believable. Mark Strong, who is great as the bad guy in one film after another, has a blank stare on his face throughout and doesn’t generate the kind of hatred that his character should. Strangely, the performances that worked the best for me were either the ones where the actors were covered in special effects – like Willem Dafoe, Samantha Morton and Thomas Haden Church as the main Tharks – or the ones who are barely in the movie, like Bryan Cranston as a Civil War general, who has just a few scenes near the beginning, but steals every one he is in.

In short, I loved the ideas behind John Carter, and the visual look and feel of the film, much more than the film itself. Had it been longer, and taken the proper amount of time to develop all of its characters, perhaps it could have made up for the miscasting of the lead role. On the other hand, had they cast the lead role better, the rushed storyline might not have stood out so much. As it stands now, John Carter is much less than the sum of its parts.