Dory Never Reaches the Same Depths As Nemo, But It's Still a Lot of Fun

Rating: 7/10 (29 August 2016)

Whilst Pixar has a deserving reputation for being one of the greatest animation studios of all time, their sequels have tended to be a lot more hit and miss. The second and third Toy Story films are some of the studios best works, but its other sequels 'Cars 2' and 'Monsters University' are probably the studios biggest disappointments. As for finding Dory it's probably somewhere between these two extremes. It doesn't quite live up to Finding Nemo, but it's still a worthwhile sequel that still better than the mediocrity of 'Cars 2'.
Taking place about a year after the first film, Dory (Elen DeGeneres) has started a happy new life with Marlin (Albert Brooks) and Nemo (Hayden Rolence). But one day when helping out with a class trip at Nemo's school Dory see's something that remind her about her family and she realises she has to find them. Knowing what it's like to lose their family, Marlin and Nemo go with Dory on a journey across the ocean to find her family. Their search quickly leads them to an aquarium (wisely changed from being located at Seaworld after the Blackfish documentary) where Dory rediscovers her roots and remembers her life before she found Nemo.
It's a good story and one that does feel like an organic development from the first film, but it does feel like a step down from Finding Nemo. Whilst the journey still allows for a lot of emotional moments, there's never the same feeling of urgency or danger as there was in the first film. Plus everything just feels like it's happening on a smaller scale this time. Instead of focusing on a vast adventure across the sea, it's much more scaled down from Finding Nemo taking place almost entirely within the aquarium. It's still a fun setting, but it fails to recapture either the epic scale of Marlins adventure across the ocean, or Nemo's hilariously confined setting of a dentist's fish bowl.
Unlike Cars 2 where Mater never felt like he was a strong enough character to be the lead, it really felt natural to have Dory become the lead. Dory has such a likable personality and DeGeneres' incredible comedic timing makes it difficult not to love her. Plus she's still able to have a lot of powerful emotional moments, including one dramatic sequence that shows her before meeting Marlin and searching the sea for years slowly forgetting her family across her lifetime. It's also a lot of fun to see Albert Brooks return as Marlin and it's nice to see how he's become Dory's surrogate family. But Nemo's return was a little more disappointing. He's still the cute and kind clownfish that we knew from the first film, but he never really has much to do in the film other than just tag along.
There's also a range of new aquatic creatures that the gang encounters when they're exploring the aquarium. There's Destiny (Katilyn Olson) a blind whale who Dory knew as a child who offers a friendly glimpse in to Dory's past. A pair of kind sea lions (Idris Elba and Dominic West) who want to do nothing but nap on their rock. Though the best addition is a octopus with a missing leg named Hank (Ed O'Neil) the loner who is says he's helping Dory for his own gain, but is shown to be a creature with 3 hearts of gold. He's also a real scene stealer with a dry wit and some really creative and over the top sequences showing him getting around the aquarium. Seeing him blend in to environments and sling himself across the aquarium does lead to the most visually creative sequences of the film.
Parts of the film does seem a little too over the top at times. Even for a film with talking fish, some moments where we see fish flying through the air or at one point even driving a truck seems a little too unbelievable. But it does always remain fun. Plus whilst the film shares several story ideas and characters to its predecessor, it's still able to remain wholly original by introducing its own ideas about family and has several scenes that will be able to resonate with audiences of all ages.