Finding Nemo
In 1995, Toy Story impressed audiences and critics with groundbreaking computer animation and generation-spanning entertainment. Since then, TS's creator, Pixar, has secured a reputation as the top animation studio of the new millennium with A Bug's Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999), and Monsters Inc. (2001). This studio's latest hit, Finding Nemo, is the top-grossing film of 2003 with box-office earnings of nearly $340 million.
Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks) is a clownfish who once loved the beauty of the ocean. When a shark eats almost all of his family, Marlin becomes fearful of the dangers below sea level. He is overprotective of his only surviving son, Nemo, even to the point of keeping him from school. Reluctantly, Marlin lets Nemo commence his education on the same day the class goes on a field trip to a deeper part of the ocean. Nemo and his new friends see a boat ("butt") and challenge Nemo to touch it.
By this time, Marlin arrives on the scene and orders his son to return immediately. Nemo defies his father by tapping the boat and starts to swim back when a diver bags Nemo and takes off in the boat, leaving Marlin powerless to stop him. Marlin chases after the boat but collides with Dory (voiced by Ellen DeGeneres), a blue fish with a short-term memory problem. She agrees to help look for Nemo. Together, they encounter sharks, jellyfish, groovy sea turtles, and other marvels and hazards of the ocean during their search. Meanwhile, Nemo's captor is a dentist who intends to give him to his niece, a fish-killing terror.
Finding Nemo has some of the best cinematography I've seen in either a live-action movie or an animated feature. Nearly every conceivable color is shown brightly throughout the 100-minute running time. When I first saw Finding Nemo, I thought that the filmmakers used real ocean footage as the background. According to the making-of documentary on the DVD, the director compiled video recordings of the sea and asked animators for digital recreations. They completed the task successfully, too well in fact, because the director wanted viewers to remember that the action takes place in an imaginary world.
Much of the humor stems from the translation of human behavior to the marine characters. For example, Marlin and Dory meet a great white shark that is in a 12-step program to stop him from eating fish; his mantra is "Fish are friends, not food." Also, one of Nemo's new friends is an octopus who "inks" himself when he's scared.
Even though Brooks and DeGeneres are not among my favorite entertainers (read: they annoyed the hell out of me in their previous endeavors), they fit their respective characters perfectly. Listen for other famous voices, including Willem Dafoe as a tough fish determined to help Nemo escape from the dentist's tank.
It's been said that a PG-13 rating is ideal for box office sales. In most cases, that's probably true. Younger kids can't get into an R movie legitimately without their parents. PG movies are arriving in fewer numbers; furthermore, anything lower than PG-13 might come across as lame to a teenager. Regardless of all of these trends, who would believe that a G-rated movie would be the most profitable film of any year?
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When watching a film set in the ocean, you are justified in (bad joke alert) drinking like a fish.
The love in Finding Nemo is between a father and his son, but this is still a good date flick.
Buy this film from Amazon.com
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