Review: ‘Finding Dory’ returns to the sea for a wonderful Pixar adventure

Posted on June 24, 2016

By MARK VIOLA

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 13 years since “Finding Nemo” first swam into theaters. The film, along with other early stalwarts such as “Toy Story” and “Monsters Inc.” help lay the foundation for a decade-long domination of the feature animation market by Pixar, which would go on to make such movies as “The Incredibles,” “WALL•E,” “Up” and “Ratatouille.”

But these days Pixar is very much more hit-or-miss with its productions, so I approached the much-anticipated sequel, “Finding Dory,” with a bit of trepidation. And I don’t think I was without reason. Two of my least favorite Pixar films are “Cars 2” and “Monsters University,” which were both sequels in which a comic relief character was thrust into the primary role. In this case, we have Dory (voiced by Ellen DeGeneres), the endearing blue tang fish who suffers from short-term memory loss, taking the lead role in the sequel.

Well, regardless of my reasons, my worries were completely unfounded, because “Finding Dory” is Pixar at its finest, giving us a film boasting beautiful animation coupled with a story filled with action, humor and, most importantly, a lot of heart.

The story begins with a flashback, showing a very young Dory with her parents, who are trying to teach her ways to deal with her memory problems. Unfortunately, she still becomes lost one day and despite her best efforts, forgets who she was looking for, wandering the ocean alone until running into Marlin (Albert Brooks) as we saw at the beginning of “Finding Nemo” during his search for his son, Nemo (Hayden Rolence, replacing Alexander Gould who grew up in the 13 years since the first movie).

The story picks up one year after the end of “Finding Nemo,” with Dory settled in at the reef, living next to Marlin and Nemo. One day a chance encounter jogs her memory and she remembers her parents and the fact that she was once searching for them. Nemo encourages Marlin to help her and soon the trio is setting off once again across the ocean on an adventure that will eventually lead them to a marine sanctuary.

There they’ll meet a host of new characters, including Hank (Ed O’Neill, “Modern Family”), an octopus; Destiny (Kaitlin Olson, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”), a near-sighted whale shark; Bailey (Ty Burrell, “Modern Family”), a beluga whale; along with some sea lions and a multitude of other sea creatures.

This is a pretty simple review. “Finding Dory” is an excellent movie. I’m not going to say it is Pixar’s best, but it is definitely among its best, delivering what the studio’s decade of dominance led us to expect.  “Finding Dory” is a wonderful cinematic experience that should entertain everyone, except, I guess, if you don’t like animation…or fish. But other than that, this is a summer movie you don’t want to miss.

The film is rated PG for mild thematic elements.

(This is a abbreviated version of the full review available in our printed or e-edition papers.)

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