Passafist Reviews Finding Nemo

Rating: Null/10 (15 June 2003)

In the age-old battle between what's important in film, plot or character? I'm convinced character is king. Nothing makes this idea truer than a film like Pixar's FINDING NEMO. A delightful new animated comedy from those guys that brought you Toy Story.
Sure there's a plot; it's about a father fish searching for his son fish. Many films operate on this premise. In fact even PIXAR's TOY STORY 2, borrows this premise. (For those who don't know TOY STORY 2's main plot is about a toy being stolen by evil toy man, and how his friends try to save him.) But like the above film FINDING NEMO is really about the colorful characters our hero encounters.
Albert Brooks (The Muse) voices and is Marlin. His performance could be compared to Woody Allen, who voiced himself in the film ANTZ. Like Allen this film plays with his film persona, his neurotic tendencies. The minute you see him you buy it. If Albert Brooks were a Clown Fish this is exactly how he'd look and act.
Ellen Degeneres (Mr. Wrong) voices Dory, and for once she's funny. (Yes, Ellen when you drop the gay jokes and just act funny, you actually have a shot at being entertaining.) She has some really great sequences in this film; my favorite was her talking to a blue whale. Dory also has some short-term memory loss. I kept thinking to myself, so if Memento was comedy about fish, this is probably what it would look like.

My favorite performance is William Dafoe (Auto-Focus) as Gill. I liked how the animators used Dafoe's face as the model for Gill's deformity. The details are astounding. His performance is electric. He plays the leader of the fish tank with such power, I wished he was my leader. But Alas, I am not a computer-animated fish. Oh well.
The film looks amazing. Directors Andrew Stanton (A Bug's Life) and Lee Unkrich (Monster's Inc) do an amazing job of creating a world under the sea. If you allow yourself the time to immerse yourself in it, you'll be transformed. It's some of the best digitally rendered computer animation I've ever seen. It exists in realm somewhere between what's real and what's pure fantasy. That's the kind of place all computer-animated worlds should lay.
So here it is a great film. A film that fills a paper-thin plot with characters you laugh with, cry with, and want to be with. There are vegetarian sharks, lobsters with New England accents, and California surfer turtles, if any of this sounds interesting this is the kind of film for you.
So Swim, don't walk to see.FINDING NEMO.