Franklinmovie

She just kept swimming…

Finding Dory, USA, 2016. Directed by A. Stanton, A. MacLane, written by V. Strouse, B Peterson. With the voices of E. DeGeneres, A. Brooks, H. Rolence. Original Music by T. Newman. Length: 97′. Rated: PG.

After helping Marvin rescue Nemo, Dori lives happily with them; one day, though, she suddenly remembers something about her parents and, trying to find them, she gets lost. This time will be Nemo, with his father Marvin, trying to find their friend and, possibly, helping her find her long lost parents…

The crazy expectation behind “Finding Dory”, the new Pixar sequel, was maybe the worst thing that could ever happen to the movie.
“Finding Dory” is a funny movie, with a good and profound message too, but has truly no chance against its predecessor, nor against many other Pixar movies of the past years.
The story has a few twists that help it reach the end without boredom getting the best of the viewers, but characters and places are a bit over-repetitive and with a taste of something deja-vu: the cameos of the first movie characters just get us smile a little while the first half of the movie, set in the open ocean, resembles Nemo’s story a bit too much. One thing is truly remarkable though: the amazing use of 3D and the great work on the lines and the emotional side of the story, that helps forget the aforementioned downs.

One great perk of the movie is the passionate work of Dori’s voice, Ellen DeGeneres’s: her passion for her character and for the whole project are so tangible that no one can escape from falling in love with the little blue fish with her short memory problem. Little else can actually be said for the other cast members, as there ARE  a lot of voice talents but with very few lines to actually judge them for. Ed O’Neill, is the only one I didn’t find so fitting on Hank the octopus: I imagined something very different before I heard him; maybe my bad… maybe not.

As for the music, I think that this time Thomas Newman got a bit below average, since I still remember the great composing under Nemo’s movie and I can’t just remember anything about Dori’s (apart from Sia’s track, which is still less iconic than Robbie William’s ‘Beyond the Sea’; still, they’re both covering older tracks).

As an overall impression, I really hope that this is not the trend for the Pixar Animation Studios: they have a few sequels still in production (“Cars 3”, “The Incredibles 2”, “Toy Story 4”) but I would really appreciate IT if they would go back to originals… they just do that better!

 

DOWNLOAD REVIEW IN PDF: Finding Dory, 2016