Trouver Némo

Marlin, a nervous and neurotic clownfish is heavily overprotective of his son Nemo, who only wants to explore the sea in its entirety. When Nemo gets caught by a scuba diver and taken away, it is up to Marlin to swallow his own fears and find Nemo. The ensuing search and rescue organized by the him is a mass effort by swimming and flying creatures of all sizes and personalities, such as a threesome of vegetarian sharks, a fish with short term memory and an aged turtle, all helping him realise the error of his ways in restricting himself to just his home.

As charming as it is beautiful, Finding Nemo is a joy, both visually and cinematically. The characters are all so appealing and sweet that you want to hug each and every one of them, Nemo and Dory in particular. But the film transcends above just a generic animated film, for there are lessons to be learnt by it too. The film often tells a children's tale from an adult's point of view, with risky situations and emotional soul-searching putting stress on a disjointed family.

The sea is brought to us in such a memorable and unique way that there is brilliance and beauty in every frame. The animation is of all time high for Pixar, and the sound mixing and editing are also to be credited, as they capture the heart of the sea creditably. But perhaps the best thing about the film is the musical score by Thomas Newman. He creates the essence of the sea, as well as the emotions felt by the fish throughout. Note the masterwork that occurs as an upbeat, jovial number quickly escalates into something darker in a matter of minutes. In short, the music is superb.

The voice cast are capable and cannily chosen, from young Alexander Gould as the naïve Nemo, as well as Albert Brooks as the bumbling Marlin. But the star of the show is Ellen DeGeneres as Dory. As the forgetful but caring fish, she is sweet and soulful, and provides much of the comedy of the film. But the humour is also provided by the great script, which delivers a potentially dull story with wit and soul, and shies away from the sentimentality that could so easily arise of a Disney film. And the jokes, what jokes – from satire, spoof and slapstick, they'll be a one-liner for everybody here.

Gorgeous to look at and utterly adorable, Finding Nemo sets the standard for how animated movies should being terms of entertainment value as well as story and themes – ending with the touching, thought-provoking message of how too much protectiveness on the parent's side will repel, but, no matter how independent a child (or fish) believes themselves to be, they'll always need their parents.

Pixar Animation Studios has a very good knack for making thoughtful, intelligent and humorous family films (note that I didn't say kid films). "Toy Story" 1 & 2 and "Monsters, Inc." are some of my favorite family films; "Finding Nemo" isn't one of my favorites, but it isn't disappointing like "A Bug's Life," and it is thoughtful, intelligent, humorous and incredibly watchable, just like the other Pixar films.

As always, Pixar takes a world of something and completely builds their story around it. In "Toy Story" they gave life to toys and created the world through their eyes. In "Monsters, Inc.," they showed us the monster world. In my review on "A Bug's Life," I said that the reason the film didn't work very much is because it was about bugs, and not about something mystical like toys or monsters that bring back childhood memories. Well, I guess I was sorta wrong, because "Finding Nemo" is all about fish, nothing too mystical about fish, and I still loved it.

This tale takes place underwater with the fish Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks), whose spouse and baby fish eggs get eaten by a vicious shark in the beginning. All but one egg which Marlin names Nemo.

Years later Nemo (voiced by Alexander Gould, Elliot's son?) is a bit older, and heading off to fish school for the first time. But haunted by the fact that his spouse and offspring were all killed years ago, Marlin is extremely over-protective of his one remaining family member. Nemo, sick of being treated like a baby, proves how brave he is by swimming near a fishing boat, only to be captured by a scuba-diving dentist. And so Marlin heads off to find Nemo, with the help of his newfound companion Dory (voice of Ellen DeGeneres), who has short-term memory loss and forgets things sooner than she can carry whatever she is doing out. (Like when she is showing Marlin the way towards a fishing boat and suddenly forgets why Marlin is following her.)

Pixar doesn't let down the audience on this film. There are a few things that one can always expect from Pixar films: They can expect something (such as toys) to be given their own world. They can expect that world to be given careful attention to detail. And they can expect humor.

"Finding Nemo" gives fish their own world, and the underwater realm they live in is paid careful attention, painstakingly captured on film with computer graphics. And the humor is always there. All the characters are funny. I especially like the sequences from the inside of a fish tank in the dentist's office, with a bunch of fish including Gill (Willem Dafoe's vocal talents), who constantly tries to escape. By doing so, Gill has suffered major injuries, including landing on the dentist's tools and getting sliced up. This is, of course, a parody of escaping POWs. The fact that Willem Dafoe was in the great war movie "Platoon" might have something to do with that.

This is taken from my "Monsters, Inc." review: "Pixar once again not only expands our mind, but our very worlds. I respect their company and commitment values very much, as you can read in my 'Toy Story' review. They stick to the values that made Disney films so family-friendly back in the fifties and sixties: Respect for the audience, respect for quality, and respect for the audience's INTELLIGENCE, something Disney, who has recently coughed up a bunch of lousy, thoughtless sequels, has forgotten. Now, I know that LEGALLY Disney is co-creator of 'Toy Story' and 'Monsters, Inc.,' but they really are not. They just give Pixar the money and get their name branded on the front box of the film. And even then, I have heard multiple claims that Disney is very mean-spirited towards Pixar (read into sequel trouble for 'Toy Story 3') and gives them the bare minimum.

With "Finding Nemo," I still stick towards what I said. Pixar Animation Studios is probably the best family film company out there right now, I really hope they separate from Disney some day and form their own production company. They know what interests both kids and adults, and it's almost creepy how they can make their films so engaging and fun to watch. This is one to take the kids to, and afterwards, maybe even sneak back into again by yourself.

I have enjoyed most of the computer-animated films made so far, ranging from Pixar films like "Toy Story" and "The Incredibles" to DreamWorks films like "Shrek." But "Finding Nemo" is the one that remains unparalleled, not because of its comedy or creativity, both of which are equaled in the "Toy Story" movies and in "Monsters Inc.," but because it truly, more than any of the previous computer-animated features, reinvents the genre of the children's animated film.

Humor in traditional animation is usually based on broad slapstick and physical exaggeration. There are occasional nods to this brand of humor in "Finding Nemo," as when a flock of seagulls ram into a boat and we see their beaks crowing on the other side of the sail. But such sequences only call attention to how far this movie generally departs from old cartoon conventions. Instead, the movie invests its world of sentient animals with a surprisingly scientific texture. All of the animals are based on real species. The fish tank is constructed out of real devices. There is a strong sense of locale, as Marlin (Albert Brooks) travels across the Pacific to Australia, where even the animals speak with an Australian accent. In a scene that I'm sure Gary Larson of "Far Side" fame loved, a pelican discusses with a group of fish the intricate details of dentistry. The fact that the animals talk and understand what's going on is treated as though it were a natural feature of the world. The realism is so striking that by the end of the film, you'll almost believe it possible for fish to plot an escape from a tank.

Far from making the film pedantic, this approach results in an intelligent but still entertaining picture. Most of the humor is based on parodies of human behavior: repentant sharks start a club that's like Alcoholics Anonymous, a school of fish act like obnoxious DJs while forming themselves into spectacular patterns, and a four-year-old girl behaves like most kids that age, oblivious and destructive. The manner in which Marlin finds his way to his son is so inventive that we can forgive the film for the number of coincidences involved.

The story employs the same basic formula used in "Toy Story," in which two characters, one uptight and the other clueless, are thrown together as they're forced to journey through a world populated by creatures that are a lot more knowing than the humans realize. This movie, however, creates a unique character in Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), a fish with short-term memory loss. To give a cartoon character a real human disorder is risky, to say the least, and I'm glad the filmmakers didn't lose the nerve to include this ingenious device, which not only generates some of the film's biggest laughs, but reinforces the character interaction that is so central to the story. This is in fact the only Pixar film to feature true character development. In the course of his voyage, Marlin learns to be more adventurous, getting parenting tips from a surfer-dude turtle voiced by the film's director Andrew Stanton, while his son Nemo learns to be self-reliant.

Of course, none of the sharks, jellyfish, whales, gulls, pelicans, lobsters, and humans that Marlin encounters along the way really mean any harm. They're just doing what they do. As Nigel the Pelican tells Nemo at one point, "Fish gotta swim, birds gotta eat." That's perhaps the film's most interesting insight, that there are no true villains, just creatures that act according to their nature, and a few that transcend it.

Has there ever been a better-looking feature-length animated film than `Finding Nemo'? We doubt it. With its shimmering underwater landscapes - be they in the vast immensity of a limitless ocean or the cramped confines of a dentist office aquarium - the film sports a look unlike anything we have ever seen before. The fish tank setting, in particular, is a veritable wonderland of eye-popping, many-hued visual splendor.

Although the script by Andrew Stanton doesn't scale the comedic heights of, say, `Aladdin,' `Shrek' or `Toy Story 2,' it still sparkles with enough wit and inventiveness to entrance youngsters and beguile the grownups who will be joining them in their viewing. I hasten to point out that the screenplay is blessedly free of all the double entendres and off-color humor that have blighted so much alleged `kiddie' fare in recent years. This is a film on e can watch with one's children and grandchildren and not once have to blush or turn away in embarrassment while doing so. Creators of children's films please take note (and take note, too, of its phenomenal box office take).

Like many tales designed for the junior set (`Dumbo,' `Bambi' etc.), `Finding Nemo' taps into the fear all children have of being separated from their parents - and the concomitant fear all parents have of being separated from their children. It is upon this common ground that members of both generations will meet in their emotional response to this film. In this case, it is little Nemo, an adorable clownfish, who is plucked out of the ocean and plunked down into the saltwater aquarium of a dentist in Sydney, Australia. The subject of the film's title is Marlin, Nemo's overprotective, worrywart dad who swims his way towards the continent to find and rescue his little tyke. Along the way, this Nervous Nellie parent learns a little something about giving his son the freedom a boy needs to grow up and become a man, and Nemo, himself, learns a thing or two about just what kind of a fish his dad really is.

Albert Brooks and Ellen DeGeneres are brilliant as Marlin and Dory, respectively, the latter a befuddled, daffy and utterly good-natured fish who helps Marlin in his epic quest not only for his lost son but his own definition of filial love. Those familiar with these two fine comedic talents in their live-action performances will actually be able to see many of their distinctive inflections and facial expressions reflected in the animated characters they are portraying.

As directed by Stanton and Lee Unkrich, and executed by an army of wonder-working animators and technicians, `Finding Nemo' takes PIXAR technology to its ultimate, final level of perfection - till the studio's next release, that is.

Those guys and girls at Disney/Pixar have done it again, they've created the perfect underwater world, full of fascinating Disney characters.

A truly enchanting story of a father (Marlon) who loses his son (Nemo), and with help of his new found friend (Dory) ventures out into the ocean to try to find him. On this epic voyage he gets to battle sharks, surf with some turtle dudes, dice with some jellyfish and survive an encounter in a whales stomach.

All the characters are vibrant with Disney charm, but my favourite is Dory, the comic relief, probably one of the funniest Disney characters ever written and superbly voiced by Ellen DeGeneres, pure genius.

All in all this is another success for Disney and Pixar, It brings out the child in all of us.

Solid family fun 8/10