Pixar burst on to the scene in 1995 with Toy Story, the first feature length film to be entirely computer animated. Not only did the film break box office records, it also ushered in a new era of Disney hits, including A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2 and Monsters Inc., all of which lived up to Pixar's reputation for quality family films that raked in the cash as box office juggernauts. Finding Nemo continues this tradition of fun family fare, but the elements of the Pixar formula are readily transparent this time around, resulting in a movie that is agreeable, but not remarkable.
The first thing you'll notice about Finding Nemo is that it's about a bunch of fish. Yes, Pixar has done the nearly impossible and managed to base a story entirely around a group of characters who all dwell underwater. The movie's two main characters are Marlin, a clownfish (voiced amusingly by Albert Brooks) and his son, Nemo, an adorable young tyke who was born with one fin smaller than the other. Nemo defiantly stands up against his overprotective father and swims out into open sea to touch the bottom of a boat where he is promptly whisked away by a scuba diver. Marlin, of course, sets off in search of his son, touching off a grand journey through the ocean to Sydney, where Nemo is being kept in a dentist office aquarium.
Along the way, Marlin meets up with Dory (sweetly voiced by Ellen Degeneres), a blue tang with a short term memory loss problem, as well as a whole menagerie of amusing underwater creatures, from vegetarian sharks to surf-speak drawling turtles. Marlin's underwater odyssey provides a dazzling showcase for Pixar's animation skills, and in Finding Nemo the animators pull out all the stops. Oftentimes I found myself ignoring the dialogue completely, becoming lost in shimmering sunlight-tinged waves or hypnotic fields of translucent pink jellyfish. Pixar should be commended not only for its fantastic background animations of undulating water, but also for the amazing accomplishment of bringing genuine personality and emotion to the movie characters' expressions. Fish, sharks, pelicans, crabs and turtles are all animated with an inventive facial dexterity that perfectly allows each creature's unique personality to stand out.
Unfortunately, the movie's storyline is nowhere near as complex as its animation, and the film's simple message of independence and learning to "let go" is hammered home with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Although I wasn't expecting a complex psychodrama in a Disney family film, Finding Nemo ends up being bogged down by its simplistic and repetitious humor. We are told three times within a ten-minute span that Marlin isn't very funny for a clownfish. Another example of repetition is Dory's short term memory loss problem, a plot device that is mined relentlessly for humor but never really produces any real laughs, although it does provide for one of the movie's most poignant moments near the end of the film.
In this sense, the movie's humor isn't as much about laughing-out loud as it is about faint smiles of recognition. This is not to say that the movie is completely bereft of humorous moments. My favorite line of the movie occurs when one of the aquarium's loopy denizens, referring to the newly installed computerized fish-tank cleaner, furiously bellows "Curse you AquaScum 2000!" It's a scene reminiscent of Charlton Heston's anguished cry at the end of Planet of the Apes, and it had me laughing well after the movie was over.
In the end, Finding Nemo is still a better than average movie, and families looking for a simple story with fun characters will have a good time. The Pixar conventions of a supporting cast of loopy characters, occasional adult-aimed humor that goes way over the heads of young children and a family friendly storyline are in full effect. However, moviegoers simply out to see a cute movie with fantastic accompanying visuals will end up pleased.
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