'Finding Dory' a fun if watered-down 'Nemo' sequel
Thirteen years ago in the critically lauded, box office smash "Finding Nemo," Ellen DeGeneres' forgetful blue tang fish Dory became an instantly beloved supporting character.
But as the big fish in her own undersea comedy/adventure?
She's a little out of her depth.
How many times can Dory repeat what another character says before it ceases to be amusing?
How many times can the attention-span-deficit fish say, "Hi, I'm Dory. I suffer from short-term memory loss!" before it becomes mildly irritating?
How many clusters of flashbacks can an animated movie use before they water down the story?
The opening of "Finding Dory" offers lots of non-cinematic helicopter parenting by Charlie and Jenny (Eugene Levy and Diane Keaton) before an undertow sweeps Dory away to an unknown part of the ocean.
Alone and unable to remember anything, poor Dory strives to survive with a little help from strangers.
All she wants to do is find her parents and return home again, a plot point that begs the question, wouldn't "Finding Dory's Parents" be a more accurate title?
Dory thinks, for reasons that frankly only make sense to her, that her parents might be at the Marine Life Institute, a facility dedicated to rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing aquatic life-forms.
So, off she swims, accompanied by her clownfish friends, Marlin (Albert Brooks, back again) and Nemo (12-year-old Aurora actor Hayden Rolence, replacing Alexander Gould, now 21).
Then, just when this movie needs something like a chameleonic octopus to spice up the action, one crashes into the frame.
Hank the curmudgeonly chameleonic octopus (voiced by Ed O'Neill) can assume colors and textures, even shapes, to fit his surroundings,
Hank moves like a ninja blob with tentacles, seven of them left since some anxious kid apparently removed one.
The "septopus" becomes Dory's protector and underwater road buddy at the Marine Life Institute where Sigourney Weaver's voice welcomes everyone on the loudspeakers.
He's not exactly a good Samaritan of the sea. Hank wants a tag on Dory's fin, one that will get him transferred to a utopian Cleveland aquarium where he can be left alone.
Other colorful characters rally to Dory's scaled sides, among them Bailey ("Modern Family" star Ty Burrell), the institute's beluga whale struggling with echolocation dysfunction, and a nearsighted whale shark named Destiny (Kaitlin Olson, stretching her whale-like vowels).
"Finding Nemo" writer/director Andrew Stanton directed this sequel and cowrote the screenplay (with Victoria Strouse) that lacks the wit, imagination and sheer sense of amazement that made the 2003 original an eventual animation classic.
Nonetheless, "Dory" offers adventure and fun as it swims in gorgeous, animated, photorealistic detail that wisely retains an all-important fantasy edge to makes these characters click in their underwater world. (The filmmakers had to adapt their 13-year-newer technology to simulate what the original movie looked like.)
Note: Alan Barillaro's excellent film short titled "Piper" accompanies "Finding Dory," and it's a stunning work of wordless visuals showing how a sandpiper mother bird really does push her protesting offspring out of the nest.
This sharp and poignant short proves to be a perfect counterpoint to the "Dory" message suggesting kids must return home to live with their parents, either the millennial generation's collective worst nightmare or financial salvation.
“Finding Dory”
★ ★ ★
Starring: Ellen Degeneres, Albert Brooks, Hayden Rolence, Ed O'Neill, Ty Burrell, Diane Keaton, Eugene Levy, Idris Elba, Bill Hader
Directed by: Andrew Stanton and Angus MacLane
Other: A Walt Disney Pictures release. Rated PG. 100 minutes