G-4rce Film Reviews: Finding Dory

Caution: this review will contain spoilers

As part of my film class, I had to see Finding Dory this week. As with any Pixar film, I always walk into a theater with high expectations, but lets face facts here, Finding Dory didn't meet those expectations. Okay, the film wasn't that bad; or to put it in simpler terms, it wasn't the high-quality of Toy Story or The Incredibles, nor was it the low quality of Cars 2. It was more the quality of... Brave and The Good Dinosaur, except I enjoyed The Good Dinosaur way more than this one.

Story
The plot is simple: Dory suddenly begins to remember fragments of her past and her family and adventures out with Marlin and Nemo. This idea of a storyline is about as formulaic as you could possibly get, so the question is how well can Pixar execute? I meant what I said that this film had the quality of Brave: it was predictable. Here's how it works: Dory ventures out to find her family, she meets a bunch of new faces along the way, she picks up clues which draw her closer to her family, and then, finally, she finds them. Dory finding her parents was executed poorly, and here's why: so while inside Quarantine at the Marine Institute in Morro Bay, Dory finds other blue tangs just like her and asks them where her parents are. They recognize Dory, and tell her that her parents were dead, which I saw coming from a mile away, and I mean a MILE away. A couple moments later, Dory ends up back in the ocean near the Marine Institute and tries to keep herself from panicking by finding even more clues toward her family. She just got the heads up that they were dead, so I didn't quite understand why she didn't break down, but she kept moving forward, which just seemed unrealistic, but hey, it's a cartoon right? A cartoon from DISNEY, am I right? Anyways, she follows a trail of shells, a method that her parents used to help Dory find her way around, that lead to a small fish home. Then, out of nowhere, her parents show up. At first, I thought Dory was dreaming or something, but it was legit. To be honest, I think this whole thing would've been much more significant and would've made more sense if Dory's parents were really dead, then it would've gone a different route than the basic "oh, we found her parents! Yay!". But, I guess the "just keep swimming" motto stuck with her, which somewhat worked, but the climax lost its significance with the claim of Dory's parents passing away. Now what is it about this film that keeps the audience watching? The answer is the anticipation up to its climax, but it left me underwhelmed and the ending felt like an ending to a far more deeper story than what was actually given.

Characters
Of course, we meet some new faces for this film, like any sequel should have. I'm going to get this out of the way: Marlin and Nemo played very minor parts in the film, regardless of them being secondary characters. They were split up from Dory for half the movie, so they didn't have much of a big impact on Dory's quest. That's where the other characters come into play. Probably the biggest secondary role in the film was from Hank the octopus, or "septopus" I should say. He makes the closest relationship with Dory as he helps her find her way around the museum, all to have a tag attached to Dory's arm to take with him to an aquarium in Cleveland. Regardless of his major role in the film, Hank had little development. His attitude was rather cranky and straightforward and he felt that he didn't belong in the ocean. The movie doesn't give the audience info on what led up to this, resulting in what feels like a personality that was just thrown in there for the hell of it. Another character named Destiny, a near-sighted whale shark who recognizes Dory as a childhood friend, played a small role in the film. She was a pretty good character, but again, without any character development, it's like she was just another character that was thrown in there to support Dory instead of giving the audience more info on her for the appreciation. Same goes with Bailey, a beluga whale who helps Dory in the film with echolocation. It goes to show that no other character in the film really had any depth EXCEPT Dory. Dory's character quality in the film was questionable. The running gag featuring Dory turning a corner and instantly forgetting a subject at hand was overused and ended up making Dory look like an idiot. It was unnecessary to remind the audience of Dory's problem in such a way, but it does help the audience question her confidence, wondering if she can really find her parents or not with such a limited mindset.

Animation
Coming from an era known as 2016, you should expect some high-quality animation. Finding Dory was picture perfect. The attention to detail was just excellent and it's probably one of the few movies that I would've actually wanted to see in 3D.

Overall: 6/10
Like I said before, It wasn't a bad film, but it wasn't worth seeing at the movie theater and it certainly wasn't worth a goddamn 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. That's exactly why I think that website and its whole "Tomatometer" method is BS. Finding Dory is a B- film. It had plenty of well-thought-out gags and depth to at least keep me watching, but not enough for me to call it a great movie. Frankly, I never thought Finding Nemo really needed a sequel. It was fine the way it was.

Comments

Good review. - Skullkid755

Thanks - visitor

I dislike this film, yet I respect your opinion since there are movies worse tan this - visitor

Yeah true that - visitor

I hate this movie - VideoGamefan5

Honestly I Don't Hate This Movie Anymore, No Kidding, 6.5/10, I Might Watch It Again Soon - VideoGamefan5

Yeah I agree with you on Finding Dory. I liked it but it wasn't great. Just eh. - Anonymousxcxc