LOST AT SEA Dory, the wide-eyed blue tang fish, is voiced by Ellen DeGeneres.
Cinema
Ciara Galvin
IT’S not often that I get to go to a kid’s film accompanied. Adults have better things to do, like ‘adulting’ (paying bills, looking at the stock market, etc), and borrowing children isn’t a thing.
But last week I got to bring along my nearly four-year-old niece, Saoirse. As a bribe to get her to finish her dinner, I said we’d go for a spin in my car to the cinema. After a little hiccup (her telling me we were going to die after she looked at my car) we set off to see ‘Finding Dory’.
The film is a sequel to Pixar’s 2003 hit comedy-drama ‘Finding Nemo’, and sees the welcome return of the voice of Ellen DeGeneres as ‘Dory’.
Its predecessor won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and became the biggest-grossing animated film at the time, the people at Pixar knew the follow-up needed to hit the same high note. Does it? Sadly, it does not.
‘Finding Dory’ follows pretty much the same premise as ‘Finding Nemo’, except the trials and tribulations facing Dory as she tries to find her parents are made worse by her amnesia.
We’re introduced to Dory, an absolutely adorable but forgetful wide-eyed blue tang fish. Her parents are trying memory exercises with her while Dory gets distracted by sand and shells.
Such is the extent of her amnesia, that after becoming separated from her parents, Dory actually forgets who she has lost and who she should be looking for.
After a chance encounter with a sting ray, Dory remembers a segment of her lost family, and so the journey begins.
The turtles are back, but only for a cameo appearance. Two British sea lions protectively perched on their rock are great additions, as are the new loveable characters Destiny, the whale shark, and Bailey, the beluga whale. Bailey has lost his echolocation temporarily, due to concussion, and Destiny is short sighted, which makes for a great comedic duo attempting to help Dory find her parents.
The sea lions are under-utilised though, and Destiny and Bailey only really come to the fore in the last 20 minutes.
Another new character is the chameleon-like octopus (or septopus, as Dory refers to him, as he’s lost a tentacle), Hank. The cranky introvert is voiced by Ed O’Neill (Ed Bundy in ‘Married...With Children’), which works well as you’d imagine.
Pixar’s 3D animation is on point, and from the sun gleaming on fish scales to the colourful seascape familiar from the first film, the film is a feast for the eyes. Even as Hank is suctioning his way along walls, the suction cups are impressively realistic.
It’s a nice story, but one that’s a little heavy on the moral lessons, especially for an audience full of kids. The laughs are sparse, and at 103 minutes, the runtime is just too long for a children’s film.
Rating 4 out of 10
Fishy business
