Good but not as good as Finding Nemo

Rating: 8/10 (23 May 2018)

Amnesiac Blue Tang Dory takes centre stage in this sequel to Finding Nemo: Finding Dory might more accurately be called Finding Dory's Parents, although Dory finds herself, too.
Dory's memory which, we know from Finding Nemo, is highly unreliable in the short term, conveniently returns sufficiently for her to recall her parents and, voila, we have our plot. Dory, accompanied by Marlin and Nemo, goes on a search which takes her to an extensive Sea Life Centre, where her trip from tank to tank, exhibit to exhibit, is helped enormously by a 7-tentacled octopus (heptopus?) who is talented at slithering from place to place.
The story is fairly straightforward - far from dissimilar to Finding Nemo, in fact - but, rather than the heart of the story being the need to let go of your children (quite a deep concept for a kids' film), here it is friends, family and hope, a more accessible idea for a young audience.
Dory is a likeable character as we already know, but is she strong enough to carry a whole film? My personal jury delivers a mixed verdict here. Baby Dory is simply wonderful, and Ellen DeGeneres does an exemplary job as the voice of adult Dory, but I found that a little of Dory's constant disquiet over her forgetfulness went a long way. And there was a lot of it, so it went a very long way. I understand that it was the central element to the plot, and that it was used to ratchet up the emotional stakes: I still found it tiresome.
On the visual side, the often quite lovely visuals were matched with an awful lot of swimming about in dark, murky tunnels, pipes, weeds and depths - the film wasn't as dazzlingly eye-catching as Finding Nemo. Having said that, the finale was great, and the reveal of the multiple shell-trails caught me by surprise and choked me up.
The 3D had little value.
This is a worthwhile sequel with much to enjoy, but Finding Nemo is still the reigning champeen.