Finding Dory

As far as totally unnecessary sequels go, Finding Dory may be the best of the bunch.

13 years after the original Finding Nemo was released in theaters, Finding Dory takes us back under the sea about a year after the original film ends. With Nemo back home safe and sound, Marlin (Albert Brooks) and Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) are taking a much-needed break from traveling across the ocean. It’s not until Dory begins to have fragmented flashbacks of her past in the form of memories that she forgot she even had, (remember she has short term memory loss), that the story begins. Never fully knowing where she came from or who her parents are, Dory quickly makes it her mission to follow her newly forming memories to get her parents back, as well as fill in the gaps that her mind will not allow her to remember. What follows is yet another whirlwind trek across the vastness of the sea to try and find where Dory fits in, if at all, and to see if her family is still alive, waiting for their baby girl to come back home.

First things first, this film is absolutely gorgeous. 13 years is a long time, especially for technology to evolve and grow and morph into something better and sleeker, and every single frame of this film shows that evolution. From the small particle effects drifting here and there in the open ocean, to the realistic water ripples and way the water reacts to what transpires onscreen, to the way the newest character, a “septopus” named Hank (Ed O’Neill), moves and blends in with his environment, Pixar has really outdone themselves in the visual department, more so than any other film they’ve produced thus far. Couple that with an opening short that had me doing a double take at the photo-realism apparent throughout, and you have Pixar firing on all cylinders as they constantly show us that just because this is a cartoon, it doesn’t mean it can’t look damn good.

But what is a beautiful looking movie is there’s nothing else to it? Luckily Pixar figured they couldn’t coast along on visuals alone, so they’ve dreamed up a pretty decent, if not familiar tale that centers on everybody’s favorite forgetful fish, Dory. Choosing to focus on her and where she came from seems like a safe play, and by all means it’s really just a clever spin on the original’s formula, but the thing that sets this story apart is the care and attention paid to Dory herself, and the fact that her most charming quality, her short-term memory loss, is more than a funny gag: it’s a terrible flaw that has alienated her from the parents she completely forgot about, thus stopping her from ever truly feeling like she fits in. Sure her forgetfulness brought her into the path of her surrogate family in Marlin and Nemo, as seen in a well-done and unexpected scene the film, but it also makes her a significantly more tragic character than we ever thought possible considering our exposure to her in the original film.

I don’t usually “aww” at things very often save for the occasional puppy video and the like, but man, does this movie know how to pull heartstrings when it needs to. Every single scene with Dory as a child and every single scene with her parents trying to support and cope with their child’s “illness” hit me where I least expected it. A lesser studio would have continued to use Dory’s forgetfulness solely as comedic material, but Pixar mines this wrinkle in Dory’s character in more heartfelt and tragic ways than anyone would have expected. Seeing Dory lose her parents and what she does to try and get them back, only to forget them, only to then realize she can’t rely on herself for anything, especially trusting herself to get to her goal, but somehow keeps swimming regardless, is both heartbreaking and admirable in a way that shows how strong Dory is as a character and why Pixar is the king of animated storytelling that hits us point blank in the feels.

My heart honestly went out to Dory more than once, and every time she was knocked down or hesitated in her quest, I secretly whispered to myself that she could do it, that she could overcome the odds and her faults to get to where she was going. Getting a hand from a bunch of great new characters in Hank, an octopus that is down a tentacled digit, Destiny (Kaitlin Olsen), a near-sighted whale shark that also used to be Dory’s best childhood friend, Bailey (Ty Burrell), an echo-location challenged beluga whale, and of course returning friends Marlin and Nemo, and you have a great supporting cast who are equally funny as they are determined to help out their mutual friend. Giving each character their own faults and fears gives us some really great scenes that are usually played for laughs, but have an undertone that allows us to sympathize with them when the script calls for it.

While most of the film is an unexpected pleasure, it’s also glaringly familiar. Pixar just barely skirted the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” mentality by adding some extra touch-up paint here and there to differentiate this sequel from the original, but if you really think on it, most of the story beats, situations and scenes are eerily similar to the first film. Again, not a bad thing, most sequels are guilty of doing exactly the same thing, but one can’t help but realize that Pixar deftly pulled the wool over our eyes in the slyest way possible. And as much as I like Marlin and Nemo as characters, most of their scenes felt a little tacked on and seemed only to be in the film to create continuity with the original. While I did enjoy them and their connection to Dory and her quest as always, it’s pretty obvious Pixar struggled to incorporate them into the script even when it starts to become clear that they weren’t necessary.

On a side note, I honestly wish I saw this film in 3D. With the amount of stuff going on in any given scene and the layered depth of field apparent in every shot inherent to the vast emptiness of the ocean, I’m seriously considering going to see it again just to experience the full effect this movie is going for, but I digress.

Finding Dory is a treat in more ways than one; from the superb attention to detail apparent in every shot, to the laugh out loud jokes and situations, to the great new characters and core emotion of the story, this film is a worthy sequel to the original, a feat that Pixar has a hard time replicating; the Toy Story sequels really being the only exceptions. While super familiar and practically identical to Finding Nemo in many ways, this film scratches an itch I didn’t know I had, all the while bringing back the characters we know and love in a meaningful and fun way. The entertaining and worthwhile execution of the film has me wondering if Pixar can pull yet another sequel to this franchise out of it’s hat, and to that I say this: just keep swimming indeed.