'Finding Nemo' was never particularly a great film.
Sure, it was a ball of a time, bolstered with snappy comic timing and beautifully rendered underwater vistas that immersed the viewers into the colorful world of fins, kelp and coral reefs, even as its main gist- an old as the hills tale of a father looking for his son- was made even more cliched by its biggest misfire- the villain of the piece turned out to be, in a flash of crude misogyny, a toothy horror of a girl who loved to torture pets. The cast is great, so are the comic inteludes- especially the quarelling crabs as well as those ever-hungry gulls- but the rest was purely for kids, especially when compared with how much Pixar has pushed the envelope itself with other, more compelling outings.
And it is therefore a pleasant surprise how smart 'Finding Dory' turns out to be.
Andrew Stanton, who directed and co-wrote the original, takes the most fabulously cool character of that film and spins a heady, giddily thrilling tale around the same; the result is a film that is very loosely a sequel and much more of a smart-mouthed, hyperkinetic beast of wit and heart. It is rare to see a sequel overshadowing the original by leaps and bounds and hitherto Pixar had a mostly patchy run with follow-ups. Both 'Cars 2' and 'Monsters University' were not even a patch on their brilliant originals because of being stuffed with the same hangup of trying too hard to match the same wit; 'Finding Dory' succeeds, mostly, because it defys expectations and breaks free from the mould of being conventional.
Everyone will agree that it was Dory, the delightfully clumsy blue tang who has a serious short-term memory problem that lands her into trouble. Voiced with endearing relish by Ellen DeGeneres, Dory is here trying to find her parents, whom she lost in a freak accident in childhood. While that might seem like an utterly predictable trope (already done to death in the underwhelming 'Kung Fu Panda 3' this year), trust Stanton, co-writer Victoria Strouse and the fabulous cast and crew to turn even the most predictable premise into a genuinely rollicking adventure that has real stakes and genuine warmth without ever trying too hard.
So, we see Dory and company, including a reluctant Marlin (Albert Brooks) and a sprightly Nemo (Hayden Rolence), shuttle from Australia's stunning reefs to California's urbanized coast and all this still feels a bit familiar until, out of the blue, we hear Sigourney Weaver's velvety voice in an announcement speaker and the film really begins to fly.
What one will notice is how 'Finding Dory' will present none of the pleasant oceanic backdrops or conventionally entertaining tropes and elements that the original film did. Sure, the world under the sea level does look as gorgeously rendered as expected and there are some wonderful nuances to look out for as well- that wonderfully warm Mr. Ray is here taking Nemo and other schoolkids on a field trip down below, while crabs scavenge and sleep amidst discarded human junk- but the action takes place mostly, single-mindedly, in Dory's peril-packed quest for her family and this gives the opportunity to bring both sharp intelligence and witty repartee into the adventure.
The Pixar outings are fondly lauded for their impressive wealth of wonderful, whimsical and enthralling characters and Stanton and Strouse cram in them in spades for this film and lets them exchange wisecrack after wisecrack while never letting the pace flag. The deliciously charming new additions include short-sighted whale shark Destiny (who can't help but bump into the walls of her conservatory), the mild-mannered beluga whale Bailey (who has forgotten how to echo-locate), a pair of mischieviously clever sea lions, and above all the seven-tentacled red octopus Hank, voiced with grouchy warmth by Ed O'Neill, who does not want to go back into the ocean.
And the film uses all of them in marvelously comic and action-packed ways, as the frenetic narrative flies with a brisk yet bouncy pace that is more equivalent to the breakneck 'Toy Story' films rather than just a standard-issue animated film premise. At times, the film's breathless action seems to be a replay of the greatest hits of that classic franchise; a scene with multiple pairs of children's fists echoes a moment of frenzy from 'Toy Story 3' and the deliriously thrilling climax is pretty much a similar one in 'Toy Story 2' but the film also tweaks on those references and invents its own hilarious quirks.
Hank, for instance, can transform into anything possible- from a poster of a cat on a wall, to even a little baby in a pram. Meanwhile, both Bailey and Destiny come off as awfully handy in aiding Dory in her quest- especially Bailey, who promises, in one soaring moment, to be the 'most powerful pair of glasses' for Destiny.
Meanwhile, there are some quirks that will merely hit you on the nose to make you roll down the aisles and even all of them are refreshingly smart and never overwhelm the proceedings. The afore-mentioned sea lions, voiced with ribald energy by Idris Elba and Dominic West, get their own goofy moments in the sun and things turn positively cracking with a red-eyed common loon named Becky, as well as a whole bunch of otters who end up being more smart than their unbearably cute appearance would suggest.
'Finding Dory' plays the smart and fast script straightly enough but does make some room for a genre-pushing seriousness that was missing in the original film. There are subtle but sharply pointed digs made at the ironic nature of rehabilitation and how it would only end up trapping life and nature rather than liberating them fully. All of that is kept a bit too much in the backdrop, unlike George Miller's 'Happy Feet' (which remains as the gold standard, alongside Pixar's very own 'Up', for portraying the evils of the rape of nature) and the film settles a bit too conveniently for an all-happy ending, even as an emotionally wrenching scene, with a forest of kelp and seashells, cries out loud for more heartbreak.
But even in the convenient perfection of the climax, there is a soaring joy, a genuine sense of feel-good wonder that is both rousing and enthralling. 'Finding Dory' is a whip-cracking and whistle-worthy entertainer that brings both wit and warmth to the table even as it firmly and determinedly pushes further the envelope. And it ends up being several notches above the usual animated film targeted squarely at knee-high kids. Is not that truly special enough?
My Rating- 4 and a half stars out of 5.
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