Finding Nemo fascinating

Rating: 7/10 (28 December 2003)

As a traditional `kids movie Scrooge' with a couple of exceptions, no matter what people said about this movie, I wasn't going to watch it without a fight. I finally realized that people were not going to give up trying to convert me until I had watched this film, so I eventually gave in and went into it with a surprisingly open mind.
*Spoilers within*
True to form, there was a reason that seemingly everyone on the planet saw this film, and not only saw it, but liked it. I thought it was a really cute and touching story. Not many kid films start out with the death of one's almost entire family, but this film did, therefore setting up the story of an overprotective clownfish named Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks) whose son Nemo is suddenly snatched out of the ocean and place in a fish tank in a dentist's office. Marlin must find Nemo before he falls into the hands of the dentist's horrible young girl whose last pet fish went belly up pretty quickly under her charge.
Not only is the story rich, fun and cleverly written (at times with adults in mind) but the voice talent, most notably Ellen DeGeneres' work, is fantastic. Probably the most striking feature of Finding Nemo however is its beauty Â– it is so sharp and colorful that I actually half-regretted not seeing it in the theater. While Finding Nemo did not make me a Pixar/Disney disciple (pretty much an impossible task) I think that its sure Oscar win for Best Animated Feature will be as well-deserved as the win by `Spirited Away' last year. Spirited Away was far superior in my opinion, but both films transcend the generic `animated feature' label.
--Shelly