Aubrey Malone
Finding Dory (G)
The Midas touch of Pixar Films goes on apace. Can these people do anything wrong? Finding Dory follows the supersonic success of Finding Nemo and in some ways mirrors it. Andrew Stanton again directs but he’s now co-opted Angus MacLane as his assistant. Perhaps this explains the adjustment in tone.
They say a sequel never equals. Stanton wisely decides not to try and reprise the extravagant riches of Finding Nemo – instead, he shifts the emphasis. Unlike its predecessor, here the focus is more on the plot rather than the characters. And that’s no bad thing. In recent animated films we’ve frequently been inundated with a plethora of characters who, while brilliant in their way, have deflected our attention away from the main storyline.
Dory, voiced by Ellen DeGeneres, suffers from short term memory loss. (This is something we’re told so often it’s as if Mr Stanton imagines the audience is afflicted by the same condition.) When we first encounter her she’s in Australia on the Great Barrier Reef, anguished over the fact that she’s lost her parents. To try and find them she travels to the Marine Life Institute, a Californian aquarium where various sea creatures are kept in quarantine.
In her search she’s aided by various friends she picks up along the way, including an octopus missing a limb, and hence technically only a “septopus”! There are also two whales, one of which is short-sighted. This leads to many near-cataclysms.
The film takes its time leading up to the fruits of Dory’s search, eschewing any gimmickry in the process. While this is welcome from a minimalist point of view, it will, I fear, have certain children who were spoiled by the precocious excesses of Finding Nemo shifting impatiently in their seats as they cast their minds back to the intensity of that film.
Mood
The mood here is more subdued, at least until a scene towards the end in what we might call the postscript of the film. Here, after Dory is reunited with her mom and dad, she has her whale friend transport her back to a delivery truck to rescue her other allies. At this point Stanton, perhaps realising he’s shortchanged us dramatically up to this, pulls out all the stops. It’s as if all the energy he’s harnessed heretofore bursts forth like water from a dam.
Already a top grosser in the US, where it’s been competing with The Secret Life of Pets at the box office, Finding Dory looks set to repeat that benison here. A feelgood flick that boasts a quality script and some rib-tickling special effects, it’s a family film that will keep you well entertained as our mild-mannered heroine embarks upon her oedipal quest.
But I’d have advised Stanton to snip a quarter of an hour off its 103 minute-running time to avoid that seat-shifting on the part of the young ‘uns who’ll probably make up the lion’s share of its audience.
Good ***