Dory fishes for laughs in familiar waters
Ellen DeGeneres goes with the flow in her life and work
Destiny, top, voiced by Kaitlin Olson; Bailey, voiced by Ty Burrell; and Dory, right, voiced by Ellen DeGeneres, in the Finding Nemo sequel, Finding Dory.
BOB THOMPSON
LOS ANGELES You could say 2003 was a very good year for comic Ellen DeGeneres.
During that stretch, she voiced the darling Dory in Finding Nemo and her TV talk show made its successful debut.
Soon, one came together with the other when she launched a campaign on her syndicated program for a Finding Nemo sequel.
“It just seemed obvious,” says the 58-year-old, promoting her wish come true. Finding Nemo “was an iconic film and it had won an Academy Award.”
“When the sequel didn’t happen for the first five or six years, I decided to do it as a joke — and then the joke became real.”
Never in her wildest dreams did she believe Finding Dory would be the eventual title.
In the new story, the search is for the blue tang’s parents. Mind you, Dory still has short-term memory loss, but she starts recalling enough to convince Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks) and son Nemo (Hayden Rolence) another journey is in order.
Their mission is to locate the Monterey Marine Life Institute, which may or may not be Dory’s home.
Some old friends from the original turn up along the way. Newcomers include the curmudgeonly octopus Hank (Ed O’Neill), the whale shark Destiny (Kaitlin Olson) and a white Beluga whale named Bailey (Ty Burrell).
Broad comedy again mixes with light wit and a few life lessons about persevering in the face of overwhelming challenges. Indeed, the sequel is loyal to the tone of the original — but that shouldn’t be a surprise, since Andrew Stanton co-wrote and directed both.
Stanton had refused to consider a Finding Nemo followup until 2011 when he supervised the 3D conversion of the animated motion picture.
“The real truth is I wasn’t ever expecting to go back,” Stanton says. But after screening the converted film “I walked out very worried about Dory.”
Resolving her dilemma motivated the filmmaker to write a new tale that had some familiar heartfelt Finding Nemo themes such as “you’re not at peace unless you accept who you are” and “just keep swimming.”
The director and co-writer does keep it light, too. He couldn’t resist doing a voice cameo for a loudmouth clam. And he persuaded Sigourney Weaver to do a funny bit as the marine life habitat narrator.
In a self-confessed selfish bid to reunite two actors from The Wire, the director also hired Idris Elba and Dominic West to fool around with the voicing of two slovenly sea lions in their Brit accents.
“But I think I spent most of my time with Hank,” says Stanton of the octopus that serves as Dory’s marine habitat guide.
Ironically, Hank serves the same sort of sidekick role in Finding Dory that Dory did in Finding Nemo, the filmmaker notes.
“And we had four years to make a lot of wrong decisions,” Stanton jokes.
Most preview audiences seem to think he made many more right decisions over the long and involved process of bringing Finding Dory to the big screen in updated 3D and with the latest in CGI.
Obviously, the key for the new production was DeGeneres returning as Dory, which was a foregone conclusion.
“And I do have that problem with memory — but not as bad as she does,” DeGeneres says. “I just try to live in the moment.” Other than that, she’s a Dory booster.
“I would love to have every trait,” she says of Dory’s optimistic personality and non-judgmental nature.
“That’s why she’s so lovable,” DeGeneres says. “She thinks everything is possible.”
Even more encouraging for DeGeneres: “What appears to be a disability (Dory’s shortterm memory loss) may be (her) strength.”
As an encapsulation of Disney/ Pixar’s overriding message of personal empowerment — for toys, cars, rats, robots, what-have-you — it doesn’t get much more succinct than when Dory, the forgetful regal-blue fish at the centre of this animated sequel, asks herself: “What would Dory do?”
Imagine if Jesus had worked that way!
Dory’s Dory-focused behaviour is in aid of finding her parents, who she starts remembering in a series of flashbacks, not long after the events of Finding Nemo. That film was released in 2003. Finding Dory takes place just a few months later, with Nemo still, conveniently, a charming youngster.
But this time, it’s Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) driving the plot. Recalling that her parents came from “the jewel of Morro Bay,” she hightails it to the California coast, with Nemo and his skittish dad, Marlin (Albert Brooks), coming along to help. (The film should really be called Dory Finding.)
The trip leads them to the Marine Life Institute, but leaves Dory uncertain whether her folks are in this aquarium or merely former residents. She manages to get in while Marlin and Nemo are stranded (if that’s the right word) in the ocean outside; co-directors Andrew Stanton and Angus MacLane now must steer Dory both to her parents and back to her friends.
Pixar has had a checkered past with sequels. The Toy Story trilogy, with a fourth tentatively due out in 2018, suggests the studio can do no wrong. Cars 2 begs to differ and with WALL-E and Up, they wisely left well enough alone. Finding Dory lands somewhere in the middle. It is decidedly not the equal of Finding Nemo, but it’s still a strong tale (or tail).
It works best with what it knows well. Dory’s perennially forgetful, apologetic, cheery (Did I mention forgetful?) personality grates on those around her, but no one can stay mad at such an upbeat character for long. Also, she’s very forgetful. Her chief foil is an octopus named Hank, voiced by Ed O’Neill, although his character is also the most problematic. When Hank and Dory first meet in the aquarium’s quarantine area, his one thought is escape. He’s mercenary.
Hank will eventually prove to have not just one heart of gold, but three, but the writers (Stanton, Victoria Strouse and Bob Peterson) have a difficult time making this transformation believable. Science may not have proven these creatures intelligent enough to ask “What’s my motivation?” but discerning viewers demand it.
The other newcomers have even less personality. Destiny (Kaitlin Olson) is a nearsighted whale shark while Bailey (Ty Burrell) is a beluga whale with similarly handicapped echolocation skills. They and a hodgepodge of other animals (sea lions, a loon, some Finding Nemo character cameos) try to help Dory complete her mission.
There isn’t much human interaction (until a scene near the end that feels a bit too surreal for my liking), but Sigourney Weaver does a good job as herself, providing the voice of the aquarium’s educational soundtrack, a proecology message that thankfully never gets too strident.
Finding Dory is also gorgeous to behold; an early press screening was in 2D, but I’d recommend springing for the glasses and the full ‘fish-tank’ effect.
And do stay for the credits, which feature a beautiful slow pan of underwater life, topped with a final silly scene.
Kids should enjoy the frantic pace of the movie, but adult fans of Nemo may grumble about diminishing returns.
That also goes for Piper, the animated short that precedes the feature.
For the first time in a while, neither the short nor the movie has had me embarrassedly choking back tears, an experience I’ve come to half dread, half demand from Pixar’s well-meaning, manipulative creative team.