Review of Finding Dory (2016) by Samichsupernova — 25 Jun 2016

I'm puzzled at all the love for this because I was extremely disappointed. The story, script, characterizations, everything was just slipshod and lacking in the quality we all expect from Pixar. That it was directed by Andrew Stanton makes no sense to me, because normally his films have a polished look and feel to them, and with the exception of maybe one or two revelatory moments, that is simply not the case here. This is his weakest cinematic effort thus far, and I blame Pixar's storyboard-by-committee approach 100%. Whereas one of Finding Nemo's strengths was in its realism (remember how tough it was for those fish to find a way out of that fish tank??), in this film the characters become involved in ridiculous set-pieces where the audience is asked to suspend a HUGE amount of disbelief in order to accept what's happening on-screen. Without spoiling anything I will say that there were far too many scenes where I was asked to turn my brain off, or was straight-up reminded that I was watching a kids' movie that can pick and choose whenever it wants to be taken seriously, rather than something that actually makes an effort at immersing the audience, or at least attempting to immerse the audience, in a semi-believable universe.

Also, the writing is weak. The story takes some very predictable turns towards the end, the dialogue is nothing special, and very few characters from the original film return. Marlin and Nemo have hardly anything to do and the film IMO places way too much emphasis on Dory, with maybe one too many unneeded flashbacks, and going so far as to spend far too much screen time milking the character's journey for emotion. Of course it's going to be a tough emotional journey getting one's memories back, but that doesn't mean the writing and plot have to progress at such a slow pace. Also, Ellen DeGeneres gives her heart and soul into the performance, but Dory as written is really not all that compelling. There was clearly a missed opportunity here for real character development.

The single best part of the movie is Hank the octopus, hands-down. He's not only the coolest character in both these films, he's one of the more memorable Pixar characters in the last decade. Sadly, the film is not about Hank and he is only a supporting character. The sea lions were great as well. "Gerald!".

I woke up the next day wondering what went wrong, and why this film seems to be so critic-proof when there are so many issues with it. Sure, there are some decent emotional scenes and two or three laugh-out-loud moments (including one gag that nearly had me rolling on the floor), but for the most part this film is boring, sloppy, predictable, and utterly lacking in the wonder, world-building, and emotion of the original, much superior Finding Nemo. O Pixar, how the mighty have fallen...