Dull and unnecessary repetition of original

Rating: 3/10 (15 August 2016)

I'll come out and admit up front that "Finding Nemo" is not one of my favourite Pixar movies. When it was released I found it quite easily the least funny Pixar movie to date and, having followed "Monsters Inc.", I worried that Pixar were shifting their focus to the kids in the audience without delivering so many of the clever references and gags that are the core of their appeal to adults. Happily "The Incredibles" followed the subsequent year, still the best movie the studio has produced.
Critical reception for "Finding Dory" convinced me to give it a go, but I wish I had listened to my instincts to avoid this one. Much like its predecessor, the film is generally lacking in humour and barely raised a chuckle from me throughout. Not much thought seems to have gone into making clever gags, exemplified by the oft-mentioned use of Sigourney Weaver as voice talent. It's like someone at Pixar said "Hey, wasn't it funny when we had Sigourney Weaver as the voice of the ship's computer in "WALL-E"? Well, yes, it was - because that was a clever reference to the film "Alien". Here, no such reference exists, so it's just unfunny name-dropping.
The lack of humour compounds upon a really weak story line that is soul-drainingly repetitive. It is no spoiler to say that the vast majority of this movie consists of the three main characters being split up on their way somewhere, managing to get back together again and then immediately being split up again. It happened over and over again until I was internally screaming at the film to come to a merciful end. The film's emotional core is a simple rehash of the original and never rises above the bargain-basement "Family is good" and "You can do it if you try" tropes of a million other kids films. It's a far cry from the subtlety exhibited by last year's "Inside Out".
Possibly most damning of all is the fact that this movie doesn't even push the visual boundaries of the original. Considering that it's been 13 years I was expecting to be wowed by some great underwater visuals, but this film doesn't look any better than its predecessor. Disappointing to say the least.
Overall this is definitely one to skip unless its to keep young children occupied for 90 minutes. Given that next year we have an unwanted 3rd "Cars" movie, we'll have to hope that original IP "Coco" can demonstrate the qualities that we've come to expect from Pixar - they're in short supply here.