Finding Dory

The movie wasn't bad. On the other hand, I've seen much better stuff from Pixar, and the constant play on emotions was annoying. It’s enough that I have to put up with that in regular films. The animation was of course excellent, the underwater (and aquarium) life looked magnificent. I enjoyed the movie, except for the heartbreaking scenes which were pretty much unnecessary. (2016-11-20)

The problem I have with Finding Dory is that the entire narrative is essentially based on her short-term memory problem, which doesn’t seem like enough to me. I'm not saying that this interaction and collision with reality wasn't funny at all, just that unfortunately all the "short term memory" jokes soon become repetitive and simply boring. Compared to its predecessor, this sequel is overall less funny and paradoxically contains more of the serious scenes, which instead generate negative emotions. But I just have to give it an extra half star for that Mark Eben. 3.5 stars. (2019-03-25)

I’ve never been crazy about Finding Nemo. I think of it as a perfect family Pixar film that looks great and stuffs the audience with the right values combined with humour and suspense. Good craftsmanship, but I just prefer the more daring, cheeky and contrived films with rats cooking in a restaurant or pensioners putting a million balloons on their house and flying off to Argentina with a fat Asian scout. Finding Dory wasn't a particularly anticipated film for me, so I can't speak to disappointment, but the fact is that it's another completely unnecessary animated film from a studio that was considered the absolute top of its field just a few years ago. It's not a weak Cars 2, but it's far too similar to the first one, only with less interesting supporting characters and starring a talkative heroine who is more annoying than entertaining. It looks great, the jokes work as they should, and it's touching in the right places, but that's it. Finding Dory feels like it's going to neutral, banking on the fact that people will come anyway because they like Nemo and probably want to see the same thing, only with a blue fish instead of an orange one. I'd like more than that, though. I'm used to a bit more class and ambition from this bunch. (2017-05-15)

Naturally, it’s much weaker than the great first one for a number of simple reasons. Firstly, it basically replicates the same thing, the only difference being that it's a constant one-on-one search throughout, and the motif of wandering through a choppy ocean has completely disappeared in favour of splashing around in the same place. Secondly, although Dory is an effective secondary character who, with her stupidity, was a suitable complement to the brooding Marlin, as the protagonist she becomes boring after a while, and also very annoying. And thirdly, there’s a dangerous lack of good supporting characters, of whom only Hank the octopus blindly driving a truck will gain any real sympathy (I was very disappointed by the absence of the aquarium fish from Sydney). Despite all this, it's still satisfyingly funny, there's always something going on (except for the obligatory moments of moralising and hugging) and the final action set-piece inspired by Inception, complete with “What a Wonderful World”, is even, to put it bluntly, one of the most accomplished of the whole year. If there's another instalment, it should have a completely new concept and include veterans of the original film, which, unlike Dory, we remember and will never forget... (2017-02-03)

"Hi, I'm Dory and I'm suffering from short-term memory loss." Like Toy Story 2, Finding Dory is a completely natural sequel that has stuck to the bar of the first film, knows the measure and does not exaggerate anything, has a bunch of ideas... It's just magical. Plus, Hank the octopus and Gerald the sea lion are such fantastic new characters! (2016-06-16)