Pixar’s Nemo sequel a good catch
Follow-up may be a lesser fish, but it’s still a fresh, funny tale
Finding Dory may be more of a minnow than a whale of a tale for Pixar, but it’s still a good catch. It’s both prequel and sequel to Finding
Nemo, the 2003 animated hit about a daddy clownfish’s quest for his wayward son, which had resolution soaked right into the title. Where do you swim from there? Therein lies the challenge for Finding
Dory, which is more obviously aimed at small fry than its predecessor, which cast awider net. But it’s a problem Pixar handily overcomes with strong characters both familiar and new and ever-popular themes of family reunification and selfdiscovery.
Shifting the focus from wayward clown fish Nemo (now voiced by Hayden Rolence) and his worried dad Marlin (Albert Brooks), the new picture tells the beforeand-after story of forgetful blue tang Dory (Ellen DeGeneres).
She was the bumbling accomplice in the original Nemo quest, the gabby fish with the short-term memory issues (which somehow seemed more amusing13 years ago). We first see her as a baby, with her fearful parents (Diane Keaton and Eugene Levy) schooling her to remember who she is.
All she learned was she’s inclined to forget things, especially when she’s abruptly separated from her family in unfamiliar Aussie waters. The narratives of Finding Dory and Finding Nemo then briefly converge, before returning writer/ director Andrew Stanton (with co-writer Victoria Strouse) sets Dory on a trans-Pacific adventure to discover her home — and herself.
Accompanied by Nemo and Marlin, but unknown to all of them, Dory’s destination is the Marine Life Institute in California, which manages to be both prison and paradise with its “Rescue, Rehabilitation, Release” policy.
There she’ll meet such colourful creatures as angling octopus Hank (Ed O’Neill), who actually enjoys being co- oped up, as well as a sonar-challenged beluga whale (Ty Burrell), a nearsighted whale shark (Kaitlin Olson) and two quarrelsome sea lions (Idris Elba and Dominic West), who all advance the plot by ripples or waves.
Finding Dory may not be quite as satisfying a fish story as the original film, but it more than gets by on the pleasure of being immersed once again in an underwater world that feels real, with or without 3D.
Pixar’s attention to detail, enhanced by Jeremy Lasky’s fluid cinematography and Thomas Newman’s liquid score, helps keep the familiar fresh and mobile. As the instructive stingray tells Dory: “Migration is about going home, which is where you’re from.”