Finding Dory Movie Review - An immersive (or, should I say, submersible) experience that you'll never forget!

Pixar has delivered some of the greatest original content that big-budget animation has seen over the years. Classics like Toy Story, Wall-E, and yes, my favorite movie of 2015, Inside Out, have revolutionized animation as well as storytelling. Their ability to use abstract ideas and deliver dramatic characterization and absorbing storytelling while other animation studios use similar ideas for the sake of pandering is what makes them stand out. Their ability to follow up on that material, however, has had some mixed results. The Toy Story trilogy was phenomenal, as each film built upon one another and led to dramatic changes in its characters. Cars 2, on the other hand, really had nowhere else to go with where the characters left off in its predecessor and threw around too many zany ideas for the sake of amusing little kids. The reason I bring both of these up is because Finding Dory holds elements of both of these, holding some rather zany detours, but never too much to entirely distract from some strong, dramatic character development and a lot of touching moments.

In this film, we learn about the origin of Dory and meet her parents, as we find out she got separated from them as a child and, due to her short-term memory loss, forgets where they are, how to find them, and eventually, the fact that she was even looking for them to begin with, all leading to when she's grown up and acquainted with Marlin, as we saw in the first film. One year after she and Marlin find Nemo, she is reminded of her origins and goes out to find her parents at a marine biology institute, where sea creatures are nurtured until they are rehabilitated. Here, she comes across an Octopus named Frank and a whale named Destiny, both of whom help her explore the institute to regain her memory and find her family.

So, instead of an ocean-wide journey in which Marlin goes to find Nemo, Dory is out on a journey to FIND HERSELF.... Tell me I didn't just blow your mind there!

Typically, making what was originally the comic relief in the first film the primary character in the follow-up holds mixed results, but Pixar pulls it off nicely in this flick. The way they do that is by highlighting her ability to keep moving forward (or, you know, just keep swimming) as a huge asset in moving the journey forward, as well as treating every moment where she does regain her memory with the respect and dramatization that it deserves. It's not sappy moralism or treacle; it's a serious, intense change of course for Dory's life, and you feel the weight of it every time it comes up. By the end of it all, you can tell Dory's changed and grown from those experiences. It's similar to the change Marlin made throughout the first flick, and it fits rather nicely.

As expected from Pixar, the animation is gorgeous as well. The amount of detail they go into in recreating undersea life (yes, even in the observatories) is phenomenal to say the least. Every fish moves as a real fish would move, even in the background, and everything from the coral formations to how wet every fish looks on dry land to the tiny little specs in the water.... Pixar did their homework! And yes, being a mostly underwater experience, it's even more immersive in 3D!

But yes, I did mention earlier that there were some zany moments that bothered me a little. I understand that animation is allowed to be zany for the sake of creativity, but while Finding Nemo wasn't always 100% realistic, it at least existed in a realm where you never said to yourself "That could never happen!" In this film, however, we have a few moments of the characters going from point A to point B in ways that just make me shake my head and say "....What the hell am I watching?" Just as one example (slight spoiler), Dory and Frank get to one of the observatories by Frank pushing them around in a baby cart. Yeah, that seems a little out of place compared to what I was just describing, doesn't it?

If I had to sum it up, though, I would say Finding Dory is what I would call a must-see. It has a few weird moments, sure, but it has too many strong moments of characterization to be ignored. It further proves why Pixar is still on top and deserves to be recognized as a strong follow-up to Finding Nemo.

My rating: