Pixar does what it does, and they shine often

Rating: 8/10 (17 June 2016)

Hey, sometimes a sequel that's very good is good enough. That may be the take-away to have with Finding Dory, which follows up on Finding Nemo 13 years after that film introduced children and adults around the world to Marlin, Dory, Nemo and the other sea-bound characters (though the events take place about a year after the start of the first story). Sometimes a sequel is hard to pull off, even (especially) if it's by the same group involved in pulling off wonders with the first one. What expectations will we have? Can the jokes all work if there's no surprise anymore to things like Dory's short-term memory loss or her catch phrase "just keep swimming" diddy or her whale-speak? As it turns out the people at Pixar are high-functioning geniuses because they do make us care about Dory, who was a heartfelt but ultimately comic foil (sometimes a helpful one) in the first story), as someone who has full agency for her own tale and in this it's... finding her family, of course.
It's familiar, yes, we've seen this before. Maybe a lot of kids coming to see this - and who knows if you may take them to it as one of their first movies ever - won't see it as tired or hackneyed as something adults have seen many times. It all depends on the ingredients the filmmakers put into the story that counts. Here Dory finds herself coming to California at a marine park full of fish in aquariums (and helpfully the voice of Sigourney Weaver, no really it's her, is there to welcome everyone to the park and she becomes in a funny way like some minor God in this realm to the fish), and her mission is simple: find her parents and use the clues dug deep in her scattered long-term memory to find them, with the help of some new under-water friends like Hank the octopus (well, septupus since he has seven limbs, one is lost but hey Ed O'Neill), a near-sighted whale-shark (Kaitlin Olson) and a beluga whale (Ty Burr).
The filmmakers never pass up a chance for comedy, and I'd say nine times out of ten they're successful with big laughs for the audience as a whole. Whether the kids will be laughing at some things more than the adults, and visa-versa (I don't think they give a darn or even know who Weaver is, for example), but once again applause must be given to how deftly Stanton and his writing team balance out major comic-peril and behavior related comedy with some dark-sad moments too. And Dory, again, makes for an unlikely compelling protagonist. It seems odd to make her the hero of a story as someone who can't remember anything - it worked in Memento but that was a noir with tattoos of memories written on someone's damn skin - since in order to have forward momentum you need to remember things that can take you from A to B to C. Some of the fish friends help, and sometimes those conveniently times long-term memory flashes (including an incredibly cute little Dory by the way) help her along.
If I feel at all hard on the film, which by the way keeps consistent with the first movie's gorgeously rendered sea world of creatures and environments and small details that make up everything here and yet is stronger than what was available in 2003, it's because Pixar continues to set the bar so high for themselves. If you're the Picasso or Van Gogh of your medium, then as much at it may not be fair to judge the still wonderful works as flawed it's still something to point out (not that this movie doesn't try harder or swing for the fences more than the majority of kids animated fare out there, with the exception of Disney animation studios).
If there were two main issues, aside from little pieces of familiarity that stuck out (or the occasional gag that didn't work for me, like the, uh, mentally challenged seal character, hey guys, if you already have an 'off' bird character, don't get greedy with two), it's these: Nemo and Marlin are in the story and are supporting characters which is fine except they aren't really given much to do, and while their story was told in the first movie aside from comic peril situations (albeit well times and executed with Brooks always game in the role) it doesn't add much to the story that's here. The other is the third act reaches too far into upping the ante moment to moment and there's an air of anti-climax since, well, the real emotional climax is already found, and you can sort of guess where that's coming too (also by this point Dory's memory loss is not really taken as much into account story-wise as it could/should be).
And yet Finding Dory is a charmer and a full delight because the filmmakers are sincere with how they present this story and is one of the must-sees of the summer. To put it another way, it is great, just flawed-great if that makes sense and the 3rd best Pixar sequel for what it's worth.