It's cute fluff - Nothing more; nothing less

Rating: 6/10 (5 August 2017)

'FINDING DORY' was directed by Andrew Stanton and Angus MacLane and stars Ellen DeGeneres, Albert Brooks and Ed O'Neil. ​Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) is a wide-eyed, blue tang fish who suffers from memory loss every 10 seconds or so. The one thing she can remember is that she somehow became separated from her parents as a child. With help from her friends Nemo and Marlin, Dory embarks on an epic adventure to find them. Her journey brings her to the Marine Life Institute, a conservatory that houses diverse ocean species. Dory now knows that her family reunion will only happen if she can save mom and dad from captivity.
This movie will satisfy children and adults alike for its run time. If you hunger for something more than basic satisfaction from an animated feature, however, I cannot say I recommend it. Good voice acting, stunning animation and lovable characters are all things that this movie succeeds at while the humour and emotional payoff both lack substantially.
One thing I will award credit for, however, is that they don't completely copy the plot of 'Finding Nemo' and actually attempt to change things up. That said, I didn't find the plot for this film that interesting or exciting. An instant thing I noticed that differs from 'Finding Nemo' to 'Finding Dory' is the claustrophobia of it. In the original, we had a wide, amazing ocean to explore and meet colourful characters. In here we meet colourful characters but the enclosed space we're limited to negates from the sense of wonder and amazement found in the original.
Something that they improved in this movie, for me, was the climax. I hated the original's climax so I am glad they opted for a more inventive and interesting(to say the least) conclusion.
Ellen DeGeneres was, of course, great as the titular character 'Dory' and continues her hot streak of playing the character to perfection. Part of the fun with Dory's character when she was introduced was her short term memory loss. That is what made her an inventive and unique character. That is why it was frustrating for me that they turned a key CHARACTER trait of hers into a nothing more than a meaningless plot device that only happened whenever the plot demanded it. I am not an avid supporter of the majority of changes between the two movies but this one takes the cake for me, as far as how unnecessary and annoying it was.
Albert Brooks reprises his under-appreciated role as Marlin and still delivers a strong performance to a character that didn't need to be in the movie. Other than to bloat the film's run time with a Marlin/Nemo(who they recast by the way and I guarantee you did not notice) subplot that feels unnecessary and like just a way to pad run time. Pixar - you are above run time bloating!
Ed O'Neil debuts the character of Hank and does a great job at it. I loved the character of Hanks and, to be honest, if this movie existed just to set up 'Finding Hank', I would be totally on board for that. Katie Olson also debuts another character, in the form of a blind whale called 'Destiny'. The performance is perfectly passable but the character is so weak and dull. Pixar try to catch lightning in a bottle twice by giving Destiny a 'craaaazy quirk' in the hilarious form of blindness. She isn't totally blind but she's pretty darn close and they use this to get a couple of laughs but it just doesn't work, at least for me.
Animation for this movie is stunning and Pixar continues its noble tradition of making other studios step up their game. One thing I find quite funny, however, is that the water effects in this movie, a movie about FISH and WATER, has lower quality effects than that of 'The Good Dinosaur', a film about dinosaurs. Not to say that negates the wonderful animation put to use in this film, I just thought it was kind of funny.
The cinematography is great, as is the editing and lighting.
I will say that I laughed around 4-5 times in this movie, which is really not a good batting average. Obviously children will be crying on the floor with laughter(If your kids do then may God bless your soul) but I just don't find it that funny. They run jokes into the ground and fail to create any new ones. I may very well be the only one alive who doesn't think this film is 'funny, poignant and thought provoking' but I must express my opinion with complete honest. I didn't laugh at this movie as much as I wanted to.
Pixar's strong suit is milking pathetic humans for their tears and films like 'Toy Story 2' and 'Up' show an inane ability to make me well up with tears from just a single scene. I didn't care about the characters in this movie. I wasn't invested and I didn't feel an emotional connection to any one particular character in this movie. The emotional payoff is not strong with this one.
Personally, I think this movie would work so much better as a 15 minute short accompanying a special edition of 'Finding Nemo'. Cut the filler fluff and redundant side plots and create a nice, compact story about Dory finding her parents in the OCEAN. Obviously they did not go down this road and thus I must judge the movie on its other merits. I recommend this movie for children but not really for more mature audiences because I doubt you'll find a connection to any character or really find much of the film's content funny. I'll rate the movie 6 Pointless Sequels out of 10.