A big, hectic chunk of cinematic nonsense

Rating: 4/10 (23 August 2016)

Finding Dory wins just one miserable star, for one reason: The animation throughout is astonishingly realistic.
However, almost everything else about the film is a train wreck of ocean-sized proportions. Take no notice of the reviews of the critics, who seem to be doing everything to try and defend this horribly misguided mess.
But how is it a mess? Here's why. The whole film just fails to give you a reason to want to sit through all of it again. It doesn't feel like a proper story, instead more like a series of antics and ideas thrown into an overflowing, ugly mix. It's chaotic, too long and so stupid at times that it has to be seen to be believed. This is easily one of Pixar's worst.
Finding Dory's most egregious flaw as its shockingly incompetent pacing. The film is frantic, mindless and over-concerned with shoving in jokes and sight gags. Scenes are so rushed and so needlessly silly that they just aren't believable. Introduced characters get little development and are just forgettable. Will anyone really remember or care about Hank the octopus, Destiny the whale shark or those argumentative sea-lions in the future?
The film's strict adherence to sequel clichés also seriously crosses the line. Returning plot elements, rehashed scenarios, character cameos and overblown action scenes are all here and are never justified. In fact, by the end of it, the entire film hasn't even justified its existence. Furthermore, the characters suffer so much bad luck that it eventually turns into "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" with fish. Everything starts going wrong. Detours are constantly taken. Death is cheated over and over. And yet, the characters constantly escape via methods so contrived and convenient that it's impossible to take seriously. Admittedly, it's kind of creative in places, but it's also as predictable as you can imagine.
The climax, however, is where the film finally crashes into the ground. It's astoundingly awful. Picture this - an octopus driving a lorry extremely poorly and not crashing into any oncoming cars. A large group of otters hugging each other in the middle of the road in order to stop these cars. And finally, the same lorry being driven over a hill and into the sea. This is the climax simplified - except that it's way, way worse than that. It can't even describe how bad it is. It's a horribly written climax and is jaw-droppingly nonsensical.
Why stop there? The film fails in so many other ways that you can play bingo with its flaws. There are way too many flashbacks to Dory's cutesy childhood. "Emotional" scenes are dull and stretched thin. Marlin and Nemo are in it, but mean little to the plot. A scene where a bunch of kids are touching some sea life, who are shown feeling the constant pain, is not at all funny but uncomfortable. Several scenes, like one with a talking clam, just feel shoved in for no reason. Many jokes fall flat. The dialogue is stale and charmless. I could go on and on.
The whole thing is an embarrassing atrocity. As much as I'd love to give more stars to this movie, I feel it deserves just one. Because the bad aspects of this movie are so bad, they essentially undo the good ones. Yes, it's well-animated. Yes, it has some very minor charming parts. Yes, it can be creative at times. But everything else about the film is brainless to a damning extreme. Finding Nemo worked because it was melancholic, tear-jerking and uplifting. It resonated with everyone. Its sequel has almost none of what made the original a masterpiece.