Finding Dory

RATING: B+

People had apparently been waiting for a Finding Nemo sequel for a while. I didn't entirely understand why, since there wasn't really anything left to tell. As it turns out, the idea for this film literally comes off one line from the first movie from Dory: "[Short-term memory loss] runs in my family. Well, at least I think it does. Uhh... where are they?"

I had no idea that there were so many people who were genuinely interested in Dory's backstory and family. Going into this film, I had little interest in such a concept. Dory was a good character from the first movie, but she never struck me as one that needed her own story. If anything, her memory issues only solidified that. But here we are anyway.

So yes, this is actually the synopsis of this film. Dory actually remembers something from her past, and is able to remember that she has parents and sets out to find them, with Marlin and Nemo reluctantly going along for the ride (much like this viewer, initially) and end up getting themselves into more than they bargained for. This film takes place at the fictional Marine Life Institute on the coast of California, which brings up a massive problem with this movie early on; the fact that our characters are simply able to ride a current over to Cali in a relatively short time; it certainly doesn't seem like it took much longer than the trip to Sydney. And such a notion is ludicrous.

I was actually very impressed with this movie, ultimately. I wasn't expecting much from it besides some laughs, which I got plenty of. But they actually brought a decent story to the table--not a great one, but decent enough. The thing they truly have going the most for them is that they're able to actually get you to care about Dory and her search--which was truly the last thing I ever expected of this movie. And it would never have worked if we weren't already on good terms with the three main fish characters.

The main issue about the story is that it is a bit cookie-cutter and somewhat predictable; we all know that Dory's going to find her parents before it's all over. But it's what she does find out when she finds them that is truly memorable; in fact, we are given the best example of parental dedication that I've seen in cinema in quite some time.

I found myself unexpectedly liking the new characters as well. The sea lions are a brilliant new source of comic relief, and I liked the new whale characters Destiny and Bailey as well. As mentioned before, Dory's parents are great. Hank the Octopus was decent too; his pessimism made for some funny moments, as did his camouflaging abilities.

Obviously, there are issues though. I was very disappointed with the lack of the Tank Gang (only showing up in a post-credits scene), and I found the climax to be rather ludicrous, and really, not much was solved with it; most everything that we cared about in this movie had already happened by that point. Also, I would've liked a little more backstory on Hank; he's missing a tentacle and he is oddly terrified of the ocean, but we never find out why. And obviously the whole thing about how easily and quickly the characters are able to get to California in the first place is rather dumb, but we're forced to accept it so the movie can happen.

With those things said, Finding Dory--a film I had low to middling expectations for--turned out to be the best thing Pixar's done in several years, and their second straight good-though-not-quite-great movie (yes, I didn't really care for Inside Out). This could actually be the best non-Toy Story sequel they've done thus far. Monsters University was a mess, and Cars 2 was fun but just that. It's good to see Pixar succeeding on a particular sequel front that I never really expected them to, and they thus have given me hope for their future again. Finding Dory definitely falls short of its predecessor, but if you loved Finding Nemo like almost everyone else, there is little reason to miss the sequel.