Albert Brooks in clownfish clothing.

Rating: 5/10 (16 December 2003)

FINDING NEMO is a typical Pixar product: A stunning visual enterprise. Its avant-garde computer imaging technology wiped out the century old, cel animation process. It's done, curiously enough, by a studio headed by former Walt Disney people who for some reason bolted Disney to form their own shop. One can only guess why. Of course, Disney will distribute. After all it's not only entertaining product but fulfills the single ultimatum of Hollywood: Make Money. Forget Shakespeare's injunction: to celebrate life.
Thus, we find ourselves with an engaging story about a father fish in search of his missing, remaining son after a mean barracuda has gobbled up his spouse and other offspring. Alas, a skin-diving Australian dentist has lifted the son for the tank in his office, to be held there for Darla, his ever-so-frightening, brainless, little daughter.
Finding Nemo is always interesting to watch. It's a, very clever, sometimes hilarious, six-minute, shtick-filled cartoon stretched into 100 minutes. One can forgive its story flaws in all the fun. However, the use of a talented, well-known actor like Albert Brooks in the lead role is puzzling. Disney himself avoided the use of major names in order to evade the audience confusion of hearing an easily imaged voice coming out of a drawn character. The most distinct instance of this is in SNOW WHITE where he chose the completely unknown voice of Adriana Caselotti over the reigning voice of the day, Deanna Durbin. Shamus Culhane, for whose biography I helped him find a publisher and who worked on that classic film, assured me that the decision to use Caselotti (who passed at 80 in 1997) was intentional and not forced by the then prevailing funding shortage. This was Disney's first feature length cartoon and he wanted the best for it. Indeed, it lives today, still, over half a century later, as meaningful as the day it was released.

Finally, the most unfortunate aspect of NEMO, an otherwise fine product, is its lack of meaning. It lacks my hallmark for greatness, a soul at its center. As such, NEMO, like all of the other Pixar products thus far, will be long forgotten when films like SNOW WHITE and PINOCCHIO are still being heralded as classics. Why Pixar does this when it has a $94 million budget to lavish on a product begs the question: A shallow fish story in deep water.