The general plot is not convincing, but the love to detail is

Rating: 6/10 (21 October 2016)

"Finding Dory" is an animated movie from this year (2016) and as such it is the newest release by Pixar and Disney. The film runs for slightly under 100 minutes and it is the sequel to the 2003 movie "Finding Nemo" as you probably already guessed correctly from the title. The man in charge here as one of several writers and directors is Pixar's Andrew Stanton, a two-time Academy Award winner and the reception of his newest work here indicates that it may soon be a 3 perhaps. The focus here is on Dory, the fish voiced by Ellen DeGeneres, the one with the pretty bad memory who keeps forgetting everything so quickly. And this "disability" is also one of the major plot points in this movie here. But it is not really working at all. Dory was a character that existed almost exclusively for comic relief in the first film and her problem there was used as something funny, which makes it really difficult for me to accept it as part of a serious characterization. I would generally say that the character of Dory is not the perfect choice for a dramatic approach. In my opinion, she works best as a fun supporting character and in here they want her to be a lot more.
It is the story of Dory searching for her family, i.e. her parents, who she had forgotten a long time ago, but then her memory returns. At least partially. And she goes on the search for them, which takes her to all kinds of different places and has her meet all kinds of different characters. This includes Hank, an octopus, who is voiced by Ed O'Neill (Al Bundy) in the original, and he is probably the most fun part about the film, even if he isn't entirely perfect at all either. That whole camouflage aspect felt pretty unnecessary. He probably has even more screen time than Marlin and certainly also than Nemo, who is almost non-existent in this film. Another big problem I had with the story is that it is so much about Dory looking for her parents and after a melodramatic turn of events that has other fish (including the two clown fish) say they are dead, they suddenly appear out of nowhere and then they are gone just as quickly again. It left a bit of a bad note on everything before that really and the mere explanation that Dory's memory is now strong enough to find them anytime wasn't sufficient for me.
One of the greatest strengths of the film is the animation for sure. I know it is somewhat a given looking at animated films (especially Disney/Pixar) these days, but we should nonetheless not take it for granted. It's a feast for the eye and the scene when all the sea animals eventually return to the sea is pretty powerful. And the comedy is fairly decent again too. The film did little for me on an emotional or dramatic level, but the fun factor was certainly very existent from start to finish and this is once again due to the love to detail. It's not about the core plot, but about small scenes and comments in-between, such as Marlin saying she should just choose her two favorites and they can leave. And there are more examples of that. Even the scene near the end with the octopus driving the van is quite funny despite being quite a lot of hullabaloo, which usually annoys me more than it did there. All in all, as usual with Pixar, this was a good watch. I do not think it was one of their best or worst films and in my opinion I hope there are still better animated movies from 2016 as this one we have here (despite being a decent sequel) would not be a really deserving Best Animated Feature winner at the Oscars. A nomination would be enough. Overall, I recommend checking it out, especially to everybody who loved "Finding Nemo". I think both films are good without being great and I guess I prefer "Finding Nemo" slightly. It is a franchise that offers little in dramatic/emotional (except the beginning to FN) content unlike some other Pixar works, but there is lots of fun in there. Fans of the first had to wait long enough for sure.