Fin-esse

Rating: 8/10 (30 August 2003)

FN is a beautiful, touching and highly amusing story that will be enjoyed by millions for decades to come. It's really too different to Toy Story 2 to make a fair apples 4 apples comp, but since TS2 is the benchmark here, I'll give it a go anyway.
FN is better looking. The detail is immense in every scene, and I suspect this alone has generated alot of second viewings from those (like myself) who want to make sure we didnt miss anything first time around.
TS2 is funnier - or rather has a sharper ' more adult' sense of humour. FN has some laugh out loud moments, the seagulls in particular I thought were positively Aardman-esque. But since the main Father/ son characters are actually not very funny at all - TS2 with Woody and Buzz just can't be beat. Plus some of the gags in FN seemed a bit rushed to me, and I sometimes felt I'd missed out on them.
Voice-wise - call it a draw. Special mention to Barry Humphries as a Vegetarian Shark. Perfect, possums.
Story. Hmmmmm this is where the apples for apples thing gets much harder. Everything in TS1 and 2 was under-pinned by the constant fear of discovery by adults. It gave extra dramatic zest to every scene. FN doesn't have the same backdrop - where action centres more often than not around avoiding being eaten. This is often fun and exciting, but lacks the X factor of TS IMHO, and when the action stops, there's nothing there lurking in the background to keep the whole thing sizzling along. This being said, I think that FN had a few nice messages for the younger and adult audience, and got them over without being the usual Disney blunt instrument. Although the story was very linear - the relief of the Dentist's fish tank worked nicely.
Overall - TS2 still the benchmark for this kind of movie - but FN is still an extremely attractive fun addition to the repertoire. You will want to see it again I suspect on the big screen - if nothing else then for the sheer inventive detail of the Ocean environment.
Looking forwards already to the next one in the pixar pipeline.....