Episodic Pixar offering with some spectacular animation

Rating: Null/10 (8 April 2010)

Finding Nemo (Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich, 2003) is an episodic entry from Pixar, inexplicably hailed by many as the studio's best. In a moving prologue, we see the wife and unborn spawn of clownfish Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks) eaten by a predator. He aside, the sole survivor is an offspring with a weak fin: Nemo (Alexander Gould). The attack - and birth - has a profound attack on the formerly carefree Marlin, who becomes absurdly, embarrassingly protective of his son. When the youngster is captured by a diver, his father must embark on a revelatory quest, braving shark attacks and jungles of jellyfish in a bid for reunion.
The film is exciting, moving and stunningly animated, but has too many incidental characters who aren't sufficiently well-drawn, and a habit of hitting you over the head with its message. "You can't never let anything happen to (Nemo) - then nothing would ever happen to him," says periodically annoying comic relief Dorey (Ellen DeGeneres). That would be pithy had we not already got the point. It's still a good film.