 • About the ratings • Write your own review • Back to main page ![[]](http://img.coxnewsweb.com/B/06/93/06/image_6936.gif){kind=small} Fin-tastic Pixar's 'Finding Nemo' is one whopper of a fish story
By Omar Gallaga American-Statesman Staff Posted: May 30, 2003 The problem with smart, funny and endlessly entertaining movies is that they remind you that you paid the same ticket price for heavily hyped disappointments like "Bruce Almighty" or ponderous see-saw rides like "The Matrix Reloaded." Pixar Animation Studios' latest gem, "Finding Nemo," is wrapped in kid-friendly colors and features Happy Meal-ready characters more cute than scaly. But its sense of humor and dedication to packing cleverness into nearly every frame allows it to swim gracefully through this summer's increasingly bloody waters. As imaginative and inspired as past Pixar hits "Monsters, Inc." and "Toy Story," "Nemo" is surprisingly heartfelt -- it is, after all, a painstakingly computer-animated movie about a bunch of fish. It's as if the backstory of the ubiquitous aquarium screensaver was finally ready to be told. "Nemo" is the story of Marlin (Albert Brooks), a fussy, worrisome clown fish playing single dad to son Nemo. There's a reason for Marlin's overprotectiveness. In an early scene reminiscent of Disney's most disturbing parental deaths (Bambi's mom, Simba's dad), Marlin loses his mate and all but one of the 500 ready-to-hatch eggs the two had spawned together. Marlin overcompensates, using his son's gimpy right fin as evidence that he must protect the kid at all costs. Marlin, terrified of adventure, is more hermit crab than clown fish. Nemo defies his father in a moment of pre-adolescent rebellion and is taken captive by divers. Soon, Nemo is in an Australian dentist's aquarium, sharing an air filter with an assortment of domesticated sea creatures including a French cleaner shrimp, a starfish and a former ocean dweller named Gill who wants to help Nemo escape (voiced nicely by Willem Dafoe). Marlin, meanwhile, desperately looks for his son, aided by scatterbrained Dory, a blue tang with no short-term memory (Ellen DeGeneres, who seems to be improvising some hilariously random dialogue). Marlin and Dory's adventure takes them into a shark's lair (the sharks are in a self-help group that promotes fish-eating abstinence), into the mouth of a whale and through a scary asteroid field of stinging jellyfish. Marlin, the reluctant journeyfish, becomes a hero through sheer paternal desperation. There is much to love in "Finding Nemo," not the least of which is the film's flawless look. From the rainbow ocean floor to the black depths of a sunken submarine, from a sunny dentist's office to the dreamy haze of the East Australian Current, "Nemo" glistens with watery perfection. The trick to computer-generated water is to make the viewer forget they're seeing it, and for most of the movie, the illusion is complete. You feel submersed. The Pixar team has created a movie stuffed to the gills with smart touches and wry asides. While sleeping, Dory mutters randomly. "A sea monkey has my money," she says, a throwaway bit of business that nevertheless shows how committed the filmmakers are to making each moment count. Alas, this also is the film's only weakness. "Nemo" is packed with so many characters and so much action, some of it feels rushed. Only a few minutes into the movie, a chase scene lets us know we're already deep into the story. And many of the sea creatures (there are literally hundreds) get little more than a line or two. Many of them are entertaining enough to star in their own movie. But it's a sin of excess, and one that any sensible moviegoer will forgive. Even the closing credits are sharper and funnier than most current comedies. At an advance screening, kids were overjoyed by the film, scared by a few of the more intense scenes and in on a vast majority of the humor. (Even if references to "The Shining" or "Jaws" may have swum over their short heads.) Like "Toy Story," the film also packs an unexpected emotional wallop. Albert Brooks reins in his acidity for what is essentially the perfect Father's Day story -- a fish tale about a dad watching his kid take the first flaps into that big scary ocean. | ||||||||
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