Hopelessly Generic, Forced, and Meaningless

Rating: 4/10 (24 November 2016)

Finding Dory follows the events of 2003's Finding Nemo, where this time Dory goes on a journey in search of her lost parents, whom she forgot about until now.
The movie on occasion made me laugh. It was funny from time to time, but not funny enough to be considered much of a comedy.
I really hated how rushed this movie was. I thought the trailers seemed rushed with getting into the main plot, and I hoped the movie wouldn't be like that. And yet it was. Mere minutes into the movie Dory remembered her parents and was immediately swimming out after them. It was incredibly rushed, unlike it's predecessor, and came off incredibly forced.
The movie tries to be funny and connected to it's prequel by referencing it a lot. Sometimes the references were subtle and fun, but most of the time it's just Marlon saying "I have bad memories with that" instead of having actually well-thought out dialogue that directly connect the two movies. Marlon often came off forced because of this, like he existed for connection.
Speaking of Marlon, I wish he and Nemo weren't in this movie. Dory's story was vastly more interesting, Marlon and Nemo just kind of showed up to take the audience out of Dory's story to show a much less interesting (or fun) story. I didn't care for their characters at all, and it seemed like they only existed in the movie because they were in the previous one.
The movie, in terms of comedy presentation, became hopelessly forced more often than not. Finding Nemo never tread in totally serious waters, everything was fun. But there was a level of tension and seriousness to an otherwise lighthearted premise. Furthermore, it just tried to make everything flow together really naturally, and paced itself really well as a result. Finding Dory was filled with forced gimmicks and plot points that existed for the sake of a joke more than they did a part of the story. Nothing connected, and thus it became a very boring, unnatural mess where many jokes fell flat.
The story as a whole just lacks the realism that the prequel had. When the characters went out of water, it was s big deal. It created tension for the characters. In this movie, it's just how most of the movie is spent. The vast majority is spent above water, wandering around an aquarium. That's not realistic, nor does it make any sense at all. Again, it forces it so hard. There were way too many people in this movie, and it just didn't work in a movie about fish.
Also, this movie didn't need to happen. All loose ends were tied up nicely in Finding Nemo, so why did this need to exist? It's connection to the prequel is loose and unnatural, and it's just not nearly as engaging as a plot. It's a cash grab, and that's it. Disney was as into this movie as I was, it seems.
Overall Finding Dory isn't a good time at the movies. The comedy is forced, the plot is forced, the setting is forced, the characters are boring and so is the movie as a whole. There really isn't a lot going for the movie, but as a whole I didn't really hate it. I just didn't enjoy it. In the end I definitely wouldn't recommend this movie. Pretend it doesn't exist, and just watch Finding Nemo.