Finding Dory

You have to be living under a rock not to know the quality of films that come out of Pixar Studios. I will be honest, I haven't seen all of the sequels like Monsters University or Cars 2, but I have seen all the essentials and they are beloved classics in my mind. Somehow Pixar just keeps on cranking out new films that are just entertaining and tug at the heart strings.

But just because I haven't seen those films doesn't mean they don't exist. Eventually one day I should do a review of Monsters University or Cars 2 because they are films that have the Pixar name on them. It needs to be acknowledged. And that's where Finding Dory comes in.

Now to me, Finding Dory never felt like an unnecessary sequel. When I heard they were making it, I never thought that Pixar was doing this film just to make money. I didn't think we needed a sequel to Finding Nemo, but I thought if Pixar thought putting time and money into making a sequel to Finding Nemo was necessary, I had to believe them that this was a good idea.

Finding Dory takes place a year after the events of Finding Nemo. Dory (voiced by Ellen Degeneres) is just living with Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks) and Nemo (voiced by Hayden Rolence). We're reminded of Dory's short term memory loss and that is definitely an important aspect of the film. The film actually does have an interesting message on people with disabilities. In fact this really could have been a great commentary on mental illness and sometimes it is. However, that message can be muddled a little bit with how kid friendly this movie is.

I mean look at this!

Isn't that the most adorable thing you've ever seen!?!? That and the freakin otters and this movie is just one big unison AWWWWWWWW.

But Dory is getting these flashbacks of her parents who she was separated from as a child. And because she has short term memory loss, she can't remember where they are or what their names are even sometimes.

But she starts to remember bits and pieces of her parents and she wants to go on an adventure to find her parents. And of course, Marlin and Nemo want to help. Now I'm not totally sure why Marlin lets Nemo come along, this is obviously a very dangerous journey and while we did go over how Marlin needs to let his son grow and have adventures, there's a difference between being a cool dad and having actual concerns for his safety.

But that's not really that important, the important part is that they find their way to California and Dory gets separated and they end up in SeaWorld basically. And that's the setting for the majority of the film. Dory must navigate through the different exhibits of the Marine Life Institute to find her parents. She is accompanied by an Octopus by the name of Hank (voiced by Ed O'Neil).

Along the way Dory meets a whole cast of characters like Destiny (voiced by Kaitlin Olsen) the near sighted whale shark, or the sea lion Fluke (voiced by Idris Elba). It really is a really fun cast of characters and they really do push Dory along her adventure through this park and all the way to discovering the mystery behind her parents.

Ellen Degeneres gives a really good performance again as Dory and while some people might think that its silly to do sequels based off of side characters, Dory is one of the exceptions in my mind. I think she pulled off being the hero pretty well and it was a lot of fun seeing all these familiar characters on the big screen again and seeing them have another adventure.

Now unfortunately I'm going to complain about Marlin and Nemo again because I'm not totally sure that they needed to have a huge role in this film. The most fun parts of this film come when Dory and Hank are going about their adventure in the park. Marlin and Nemo are just kind of floating around until its time for them to reconnect with Dory. And while they do have some fun parts in this film, I would have rather had all three of them going on the adventure, or just have this be a Dory standalone film with Marlin and Nemo having a very small role.

I was actually a little bit surprised on how strong of a character Dory was by herself. While having other people around her dealing with her short term memory loss does give a pretty good message on people with mental illness, like I said, this movie was more focused on making a fun adventure for the kids.

Now Pixar has always been in the business of making movies for kids, but in recent times, movies like Inside Out, Toy Story 3, have been able to be movies for both kids and adults.

Finding Dory was a step back, making it more of a pure kids film rather than having a lot of clever jokes for the adults. I'm not saying that is a bad thing, but it is a little bit different, especially when the last Pixar movie I saw was Inside Out (I didn't see The Good Dinosaur).

But while the kid friendly sequel should be considered a bad film, I do think that it does diminish the film the little bit from being a really great profound film about family like Finding Nemo was and

instead just becoming a cute film for kids. Pixar of course knows how to tug on the heart strings and they know how to make a grown man like myself cry, but at the same time I can't help but feel a lot of the choices made in this film were more just to sell cute toys and give something entertaining for young kids to enjoy.

I do have to give this movie credit or being able to knock out a pretty fun sequel 13 years later in a time where sequels after a long time like this have not been successful in the past.

I do wanna touch on Albert Brooks and Hayden Rolence because while I do think they either needed a bigger part in the film or barely a part at all, I do think they were a fun addition and great to see them come back. And props to Hayden Rolence. While I probably haven't seen Finding Nemo in a while, I didn't realize that they changed the voice of the kid who played Nemo (probably because the original kid got old after 13 years). But Albert Brooks is a great voice actor as well and the character of Marlin is a really lovable character.

At the end of the day, Finding Dory felt like an expansion pack, you know the kind that are almost a separate game on their own but still felt in the vein of the original game. I feel okay that I spent the time, or if we're following the video game analogy, the 50 bucks to by the DLC, but it just feels like an extra adventure. Not something I was necessarily calling for, but definitely cute and fulfilling enough to feel like I didn't waste my time.

I don't think we need another installation into these characters, it seems like all the stories involving Dory, Marlin, and Nemo are complete and I don't think we need any spinoffs of Hank or Destiny, let's just leave these Fish where they are, and let Pixar get onto more original ideas, or sequels that actually need to happen... like The Incredibles... yeah just The Incredibles...

Overall, I really liked Finding Dory. It won't go down as a legendary Pixar film, but it's still solid. It got me teary eyed and it had a lot of heart. I'm glad I saw Finding Dory, definitely check it out, especially if you're a Pixar fan and you enjoyed Finding Nemo.

But what did you think? How does Finding Dory compare with the other Pixar films? How does it compare with other Pixar sequels? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. Here's the Honest Trailer, they have some good critique of this film. Enjoy!