Procurando Dory

The story was beautifully executed, it was well paced, the new characters kept the story fresh and the film was somewhat educational. Perhaps not as emotionally charged as the first, but not many sequels can achieve such a high quality level in terms of depth in all its characters and minor details. Only Pixar can make you feel empathetic towards a fish.

The continuations in the Pixar universe have always generated reflections and debates about the creative power of the studio. On the one hand, sequences such as Toy Story 2 (1999) and Toy Story 3 (2010) are praised almost unanimously for maintaining the excellence of the original, on the other, Monsters University (2013) and, mainly, Cars 2 (2011) are seen by many as oscillating points in the production company's acclaimed filmography. For these reasons, and also for the thirteen years between productions, Finding Dory, continuation of the absolute success Finding Nemo (2003), arrives wrapped in a colossal expectation.

Now in Finding Dory, she takes center stage for her own story, where this specialty is converted from humor to drama, and the immensity of the ocean is reduced to an oceanarium (more controlled environment) to be proportional to the difficulty of the character's mission. She can remember nothing, but she has flashes of memories with her parents, and now that she knows, she needs to find them. In this sequence of the epoch-making feature, the spectator has the feeling that he is missing the loved ones, such as the goldfish Dory, who is now the main protagonist of the story. Thus, the work is an incredible work of nostalgia, which fills its audience with grace just because it reminds them of such a remarkable universe.

Director Andrew Stanton returns, this time alongside Angus MacLane, to lead the plot that takes place a year after the events of the first film. Here the little blue fish Dory, who suffers from a recent memory loss problem, begins to gain insights with fragments of memories of her past alongside her parents. With some clues and a lot of disposition, she sets out on a journey to meet her family again, with the clown fish Marlin and her son Nemo as a company. Along the way, Dory gets lost from his friends, ending up at the California Marine Life Institute. The situation of the previous film is reversed, and now the duo Nemo and Marlin are leaving in search of their demoralized companion.

Right in the opening scene, the feature opens up its emotional bias, featuring Dory's first flashback. The design of the young version of the character - with his kind and gigantic eyes - receiving the affection of his parents is the first letter presented by Stanton and MacLane to win over the audience and becomes the joker of the filmmakers, as it is repeated several times throughout the narrative. The repetition, incidentally, is one of the keywords of Finding Dory. Something that makes sense due to the protagonist's condition in relation to her memory, but that also ends up serving as an acceptable pretext for the script to revisit a good part of the elements that contributed to Finding Nemo's success.

The new feature bets heavily on the affective memory of the audience and their pleasure in recognizing what is familiar to them, such as the riddle of location / address that serves as a guide for searches in films (formerly "P. Sherman 42, Wallaby Way, Sydney", Now "The Jewel of Monterey, California"). The sequel also strives to make ingenious connections with Dory's past and reveal the origin of some of his trademarks: knowledge in "whale" and the motto "Keep swimming, keep swimming", for example. Some supporting characters also return in small appearances, such as Uncle Stingray and Crush, the surfing turtle. Beside these well-known figures we have a series of new characters, many serving as comic reliefs, such as the trio of sea lions and the mad bird Becky.

Others are more important, such as the dubious Hank octopus, the whale shark with vision problems Destiny and the beluga whale Bailey. Although everyone has their dramatic roles in the story, especially Hank, these characters serve much more as tools to facilitate the actions of the protagonists. The filmmakers seek to explore the real biological peculiarities of animals - the mobility and camouflage capacity of octopuses, the echolocation of belugas 'sonar' - transforming them almost into superpowers, which work well in the busiest scenes, including a grand road chase. But, even though it is an interesting idea and inserted in a fanciful context, its exaggeration often ends up sounding like a simple crutch to sustain the weaknesses of the script.

The narrative structure adopted by Stanton and his team, despite being linear, fits flashbacks from Dory's childhood that are triggered by events in the present. Thus, the protagonist's disability and how she deals with her condition end up playing a fundamental role in the progress of the story, in a great view of the filmmakers. Although the central theme of the work is "the family", the main lesson here is how to deal with your own limitations. It is not for nothing that a good part of the new characters, like the grouchy octopus Hank (Ed O'Neill), the whale shark Destiny (Kaitlin Olson) or the beluga whale Bailey (Ty Burrell) have physical problems that need to be overcome in the course of of the adventure. The message of resilience is placed in an organic way inside the tape, which never loses sight of the main objective of the protagonist - something quite ironic, considering Dory's peculiar condition.

The film makes it very clear throughout the narrative that Dory is unable to do anything because of his short memory. She may find it more difficult to perform some tasks that are simple for other people, but she is much more than a forgotten fish. The impulsiveness, positivity and ability to find solutions in complicated situations of the character work so well that at certain times we can even say that she forgot that that was an impossible task. That's what made her find Nemo together with Marlin and that's what is highlighted in Finding Dory.

All this dramatic part is worked in a subtextual way, with the film never neglecting the good agile and accurate gags and jokes that marked the first film. Not that the script is perfect. Some of the subplots are quite predictable and the script suffers trying to find a role for Marlin and Nemo. However, every time the film focuses on the title character, all of that is left out. Dory remains adorable and charismatic, with an almost unshakable optimism and the contrast of his cheerful personality, not only with Hank's traumatic grumpy - who ends up being his main partner for much of the feature - but with his own loss past, makes her a really interesting heroine.

Looking for Dory is exactly about longing and this need to find those who make us feel at home, regardless of what happened in the past or how long it has been since we last met. Thus, Finding Dory provides a simple feeling in its viewer, uniting in an exemplary way the feelings of his audience with those of the characters on the scene, a film that comes to be very enchanting because of that. And if Finding Dory expands the universe seen in Nemo, Stanton and his team still demonstrate an enormous creative capacity, both in putting their range of characters in unusual situations, such as the hand pool that is filmed as if it were a natural catastrophe - but in In fact, it is a tank in which the children of the institute can interact with animals - but also in the creation and continuation of their visual identity, often creating sequences with an aesthetic precision that will fill the eyes of any film buff. One is the moment when Nemo, Marlin and Dory are chased by a giant squid; the visual construction of the suspense scene is incredible, showing that Pixar's excellent films go beyond great scripts.

As it could not be otherwise, the visual part of the production is impeccable. It is not difficult to recognize the aesthetic richness achieved by the work of the Pixar team: the characters are expressive without having to be excessively anthropomorphized; Marine Institute always brings a pleasant surprise to each new environment; the color palette is rich and intense (it is a pleasure to see how, for example, Dory, Marlin and Nemo change colors appropriately depending on the light - or lack of - that is seen in each place); and the quality of the animation is what we might expect from the studio (note, for example, how the movements of Dory's fins look like anxious beats on the head as she struggles to remember something). More efficient is also the montage: If in Finding Nemo the narrative sounded episodic, relying excessively on fades to jump from one character to another, here these transitions are made in a much more fluid (pardon the pun) and organic way. On the other hand, the excessive reliance on the convenient flashbacks that bring back the heroine's memories when they are most needed is a little disappointing. To top it off, if the animals' actions were relatively plausible in the first feature, however extreme they may be, here the script abandons any attempt to solve the problems with the minimum of verisimilitude - and the climax of the projection, in particular, is too absurd, no fitting the logic established in Nemo.

The essence of Pixar's formula is the balance between humor and emotion, and the film manages to achieve it satisfactorily. There are some inspired jokes and puns, the graphic quality of the animation fills the eyes and the drama of loss and the importance of the family has an undeniable appeal. What is missing for Finding Dory is the spark of genius that makes the masterpieces of the studio manage to escape precisely from the facilities previously exposed. Some moments of animation approach this level, such as the emotional climax of Dory or the great sequence in the aquarium of the children's wing of the marine park. But even these scenes do not dazzle the opening minutes of Up (2009) or the culinary critic's scene in Ratatouille (2007), just to mention two examples. Anyway, this probably won't hinder Find Dory's success, because the audience's affection for the universe of Nemo, Marlin and Dory makes them enter the field with the game already won.

I may be one of the few people out there that doesn't love Finding Nemo, it was ok but it didn't really do anything for me. So, going into Finding Dory I had no real expectations.

First and foremost, it is GORGEOUS. The colors are striking, the blue tones of the water are realistic at times mesmerizing and the movements of the various creatures are realistic and fluid.

Most importantly though is the story. Dory's journey is one of self discovery, of living with a disability and all of the hurdles that creates in your life. It's about the way it makes others look at you and how she overcomes that. Not with some miracle cure that instantly solves everything or erases the issue altogether in the end, but with honest to goodness character growth.

As an aside, I had avoided seeing this one until I had finally seen Finding Nemo and while I would recommend seeing Nemo, Finding Dory does stand alone as it's own film.

This is a really good sequel. Taking characters from the first one and putting new ones in there as well, it never gets boring or seems to repetitive. And you don't even have to be Dory, I mean forgetful, for this to work for you. Yes it does make sense to watch the first one (Finding Nemo) then, although I reckon you could watch it and enjoy it as a standalone too.

The characters and their traits are strong and there are a lot of side jokes built in to this too. Humans are being treated like extras and we wouldn't have the time to deal with them anyway. That is apart from one major voice - but it's being highlighted too as if one of the writers or Ellen herself might have a crush there. But you can't blame them for that. On the contrary you can congratulate everyone involved for a really good movie

'Finding Nemo' to me has always been one of Pixar's best, colourful, imaginative, hilarious and poignant with great characters (who cannot love Bruce the shark, plus Dory speaking whale is one of Pixar's funniest moments).

Pixar have been hit and miss since 'Up', with some great films like 'Toy Story 3' and 'Inside Out' (which are two of my favourites from the studio) and some disappointments like 'Cars 2' and 'The Good Dinosaur' (don't hate them as much as many others do though, also didn't think 'Brave' was that bad, though it was not the best animated film that year, and liked 'Monsters University'). While it is not as good as 'Finding Nemo', 'Finding Dory' is a worthy sequel and one of their better efforts since 'Up'.

The film does meander in places with occasional draggy pacing and a couple of rather too convenient plot devices, and Dory's memory loss shtick does get repetitive quickly that it does grate too early on. However, the animation is wonderful with an even richer colour palette perhaps than 'Finding Nemo' and matches that film in meticulous detail and visual imagination. The music score is rousing, whimsical and nuanced.

Where Pixar has always excelled at its best is the balance and execution of humour and pathos. Humour and pathos are balanced deftly in 'Finding Dory', with the humour hilarious and in abundance and the pathos bringing genuine tears and emotional power. The story is flawed and doesn't have the imagination or originality of 'Finding Nemo', but the energy, humour and emotion shine through more than brightly and one does relate to Dory in her quest, one that anybody can relate to if in her situation.

Good characters always help and actually are crucial in making a film work. 'Finding Dory' has them, not just Dory, who has lost none of her comic timing but moves the viewer as well, or Marlin and Nemo who bring sweetness and poignancy to the story, but also the scene stealing seals and gleefully entertaining Hank who provides many great moments. One does miss Bruce though. The voice acting is terrific, with Ellen DeGeneres, Albert Brooks and Ed O'Neill being particularly spot on.

To conclude, 'Finding Nemo' is a great film, this reviewer found 'Finding Dory' to be a worthy sequel. 8/10 Bethany Cox