LogFAQs > #968722752

Today called for something easygoing that I'd preferably seen before and remembered decently enough. So, without further ado...

Finding Nemo (2003)
Directed by: Andrew Stanton
Written by: Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson, David Reynolds
Starring: Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould, Willem Dafoe
Previous status: Saw ages ago

"Fish are friends, not food."

This held up decently well, but I do wanna start by saying I remember the long trek, "Just keep swimming," the climax, and numerous other little details, but I'd forgotten a lot of other little things. I remember it being feel-good fun, but unlike most people at the time I didn't particularly understand why people were calling it Pixar's "Magnum Opus." It's not. It's merely another great movie by them, one that isn't without its flaws. I'll get to those in a bit.

The movie opens with Marlin, a clownfish who isn't exactly funny, and his wife Coral looking over their many eggs, until a barracuda comes and eats them all. Worth noting: Coral tipped the barracuda off to the cache of eggs by diving for them, instead of trying to spare herself. Marlin gets away, as does one egg that hatches into Nemo, whom Marlin cares for as a single dad. Since Nemo has a birth defect that caused one of his fins to never grow, and he's an only child, Marlin is extremely overprotective of him. I think a big part of it is because that's Marlin's last connection to Coral, something he doesn't want to lose. Nemo, starting to develop some angst, chases after a "butt" (LOL, it's a boat!), gets himself captured by divers, and thus the plot starts off.

Marlin encounters Dory, a blue tang with short-term memory loss whom Ellen pulls off with aplomb, in a chance collision, and the two are taken aside by a shark named Bruce, who's... mostly vegetarian, for whatever reason. There, Marlin finds the mask the bad guy, a dentist, dropped, and after accidentally setting off the underwater minefield (geez, those mines look REAL), that tips Dory, who can read, off to P. SHERMAN 42 WALLABY WAY SYDNEY. This is told during an amusing chase sequence with an anglerfish.

Nemo wakes up in Dr. Sherman's fishtank, where he's accepted by the rest of the Tank Gang in this absolutely ridiculous ritual. It's hilarious how this is pulled off by fish, and it's animated pretty well - the animation here definitely holds up, even if there are some very unrealistic things that transpire. The leader is Gil, who also has a gimpy fin, but he's the sagiest of the bunch so they all trust him, and he longs to return to the ocean where he was born and recognizes Nemo's potential in an escape. The informant is a pelican named Nigel, who wants to help them all escape to the sea. All this is told well. After the help of a DUDE (a turtle named Crush, apparently voiced by the filmmaker himself), a whale, Marlin makes it to Sydney, but not before Crush's son starts a huge game of telephone about all of Marlin's epic escapades so everyone in Sydney Harbour is aware. This gets back to Nigel, who recognizes Marlin when his buddy tries to eat him. Nigel takes Marlin and Dory to Nemo.

All hell breaks loose in the dentist's office when his young niece Darla, who shakes fish bags until the fish is dead, is there, and Nemo... gets knocked down a drain that's right next to the chair? The wut? I've never seen something like this. There's the water sprayer, sure, but a drain? It doesn't make any sense to me. If it was on the counter by the wall, then that would make sense. But blah blah blah Nemo gets out and reunites with Marlin, then Nemo helps a huge school of fish escape a net since Dory got tangled up in there. He recognizes that Dory is now essentially his aunt, so that helps. Everyone lives happily ever after... except for Dr. Sherman, seeing as the Tank Gang managed to finally pull off one of Gil's escape plans, still stuck in the bags. LOL. At least they eventually manage to get out, probably because one of those seagulls going "MIKE MIKE MIKE" pecking at it, not recognizing that lets the fish get away.

Now, while I enjoyed this, and thought the animation was beautiful, I do want to note a few things. The first is a lack of a villain that you rather dislike. Dr. Sherman was there, sure, but he was more an obstacle than anything, wanting to what was best for his life since he's a human who doesn't seem to recognize the implications that fish have families, too. That's normal of humanity; I at least recognize this and thank any fish who has given their life to end up in the deep fryer and then my plate. This felt very episodic, yet interconnected, and it was done in a marvelous way with great payoff - it's just that I prefer something like Monsters Inc. to this when it comes to a climax. There were plenty of little things paying off here, like Nemo learning from Gil that fish swimming down weighs a net and Marlin's mollusk/sea cucumber joke (that ended up making no anemones with people), and that helped this stay amusing throughout. It's just enjoyable, feel-good fun, and that makes it more of a "mood movie" than something fully accessible. But hey, this is what tonight called for, so this is what tonight got.

Dory is epic comic relief, and Ellen SLAYED that part. The acting was consistently good throughout, making the characters believable, though I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the lack of a relatable female character (since most of them are used as comic relief). That's just a minor thing, honestly, since I can't see what, say, Coral surviving would've done to better the movie. It's still a good movie with a good statement about the environmental impacts of man on the oceans, and how keeping fish as pets isn't necessarily a good thing. (That said, Wikipedia says that ppl r dum and many bought clownfish as pets anyway, which is tragic. Other idiots blindly released their fish into the ocean and this caused invasive species to appear. My goodness, people. What is wrong with you? Did you NOT understand the message here?)

Overall, I enjoyed revisiting this, and will give it a 4.5/5. Additionally, @MetalmindStats , I have moved this nomination of yours to The Incredibles per your initial logic (it will move to Ratatouille, Wall-E, and Up thereafter).