Finding Dory meets a fun, heartwarming return to one of Pixar's most classic features

Rating: 9/10 (8 January 2017)

Pixar Animation Studios rarely falls short of beautiful, heartwarming features since their debut in 1995 when they delivered the revolutionary 'Toy Story'. Whether their biggest gem is their stellar technical abilities or their gift of bringing their heart-touching stories to life before our very eyes, Pixar never stops delivering the goods. Easily one of their most classic entries is director Andrew Stanton's 2003 feature 'Finding Nemo' which took audiences everywhere in an under-the-sea odyssey of a lovable clown fish in search of his lost son while acquiring the help of a funny, amnesiac blue tang. 13 years have passed and Pixar has managed to bring back most of our characters from the original and take us on another ride for relatively similar adventure. The biggest change here is unlike the predecessor which found Marlin and Dory searching for the young titular character, this one finds a new character in the Nemo's former position. And that is character is no one other than the lovable Dory, the fish suffering from her notorious short-term memory loss. Set one year after the events of the original, clown fish Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks) and his son Nemo (voiced by Hayden Rolence) are home with the latter attending school and Dory (voiced by Ellen DeGeneres) being a helping hand with raising Nemo. Meanwhile, Dory is haunted by the memories of her family who she lost as a child, prompting her to set out to reunite with them. However, when she is unexpectedly kidnapped and placed in a Californian public aquarium, Marlin and Nemo was set out to rescue her.
When the original hit theaters back in the spring of 2003, Dory is by far the biggest show-stealer of the feature. Bringing on non-stop hilarity with her short-term memory loss and constantly being a burden to Marlin's search of his son due to her inability to remembering anything longer than a few seconds, why wouldn't it be a good idea to explore deep into the origins of this lovable character? This film opens with a long flashback of Dory as a young child with her parents, and how her parents coped with her short-term memory loss which is handled surprisingly well. Rather than establishing Dory as a source of utter annoyance, the story maturely handles her mental predicament as sympathy. Some time later, she finds herself separated from her parents and struggling vigorously to find them. Afterwards, the film jumps to the present with her living with Marlin and Nemo from the previous entry and that is when the story finally kicks off. Like the original film, her amnesia still lingers and is constantly struggling trying to memorize simple things longer than a matter of seconds. But as the adventure begins and the characters making fateful efforts on helping her reunite with her long-lost family, the film not ingeniously handles her amnesiac disorder with substance but effectively established Dory as a self-aware burden who knows her mental disability causes trouble. And this easily stands as one of the most emotional and heartfelt elements of the story. There is plenty of fun (including a ridiculous car chase at the end) and certainly plenty of laughs to be handed on this adventure. And as this is Pixar, the film also holds a fair share of touching moments, though it never reaches the level of being a tear-jerker like 'Up' or the 'Toy Story' series.
While we witness the return of our characters from the original entry (some of which are reserved for a post-credits scene), we also encounter a range of some new colorful characters along the way. First of which is Hank the Red Octupus (voiced by Ed O'Neill) who becomes a faithful companion for Dory on her wild adventure through the aquarium. Similarly to Dory, he provides a good share of laughter throughout his time on screen. Then there is some childhood friends of Dory including Destiny (voiced by Kaitlin Olsen) the Whale Shark and Bailey (voiced by Ty Burrell) the Beluga Whale who both become helping hands along the way. Idris Alba and Dominic West both provide the voices of sea lions who have a few good laughs but spend most of their time lying on a rock while hogging from a another sea lion in a comedic competition (they are not much help). Becky, a black-furred bird and piercing red eyes who doesn't provide much dialogue other than a series of loud squawks but also slips a few laughs for the kiddies. Each and every one the characters here are vastly likable and the film makes a rare surprise to providing a story without the presence of an actual villain (at least not in character form. With all great intentions, it works astoundingly well. And who can forget about the photo-realistic computer animation used to bring both the world and the characters to life.
Finding Dory is a heartwarming animated adventure that delivers a surprisingly touching continuation to Pixar's classic 2003 original. This film is a joyful sure to please both children and adults alike. Predictably so, it may be not endure as memorably as it's predecessor. Regardless, it doesn't have to be. Anyone who enjoyed the previous film is almost guaranteed to enjoy this one without a single noticeable flaw.