Movie review: Finding Nemo
Marlin and Nemo: father and son fin-in-fin
Sometimes a movie comes along that has it all – a great story that speaks directly to the audience, well developed characters that moviegoers can relate to, a good mix of both comedic and serious scenes, and a great cast to boot. Finding Nemo is such a movie.
Disney and Pixar’s family feature masterpiece, directed by Andrew Stanton (who accepted the Best Animated Film Oscar at the Academy Awards) from a story he wrote and a screenplay he co-wrote with Pixar collaborators Bob Petersen and David Reynolds, is one of my favorite movies of all time and is easily my favorite Disney feature.
Finding Nemo has a spot in my top ten list not just because of its perfect mix of many of the elements that make a great movie experience but also because it is the first movie I took my nephew Jeffrey to see.
People who have known me a long time know that one thing I’ve always wanted, even as a little kid, was to have children of my own. I never viewed fatherhood as a speed bump I had to deal with on the road of life; rather, I prepared myself to embrace and cherish the privilege once fate saw fit to bless me with it.
When Finding Nemo came out in May 2003, I had not yet had any kids – in fact, I would not become a father for another four years – but I loved Jeffrey dearly and doted upon him almost as if he were my own son. Taking my nephew, who had just turned three years old, to his first movie was an honor I still treasure to this day and I imagine will only be surpassed when I take my sons Alexander and Aidan to their first movie.
The importance the relationship between someone and their child had to me factored greatly into my love for Finding Nemo, whose story focuses mainly on that subject. I value the perspectives offered by the movie even more now that I have two sons of my own, both for whom I feel an overwhelming concern and need to protect, and I have a greater sense of appreciation for how my parents raised me and why they did the things they did.
Thankfully, neither of my parents suffered the same fate that the title character’s mother does in the opening scene, but such a tragedy is not an ingredient of a parent’s protectiveness of their child but a catalyst to elevate that instinct to possibly illogical levels. In other words, you don’t have to have lost your spouse in order to want to protect your kids from the often harsh realities of life for as long as you can.
It’s really no wonder that Stanton conceived the idea of the movie from his own feelings of overprotectiveness of his child, and it is because of this origin that the story has so many resounding truths that speak directly to not only the parents in the audience but the children as well.
Indeed, one of the strongest qualities of the movie is that it overflows with insight into the perspectives of both parents who don’t want to let their children grow up and the children who think their parents are holding them down, and then poignantly flips those views around so each group can see things from the other side of the mirror.
Despite the depth and wisdom of the lessons, Finding Nemo is still first and foremost a fun family film (try saying that fives times fast) with plenty of hilarity for both adults and children alike. Much of this is supplied by Ellen Degeneres in the form of Dory, a scatterbrained regal tang with no short term memory who befriends Nemo’s father Marlin, a neurotic clownfish played by Albert Brooks, shortly after Nemo is captured by an Australian dentist on a scuba diving vacation. I’ve never really been a fan of Degeneres’ standup or television work, but her cheerfulness and good natured charm makes Dory quite the memorable character.
Equally humorous is the gang of fish who live in the aquarium in which Nemo ends up. Led by Gill, a scarred moorish idol voiced perfectly by Willem Dafoe (who portrayed the Green Goblin in Spider-man), the gang, which includes a puffer fish named Bloat (played by Everybody Loves Raymond’s Brad Garrett) who tends to expand like a balloon when he gets upset, a yellow tang named Bubbles (voiced by Office Space’s Stephen Root) who is obsessed with bubbles coming out of a plastic treasure chest and a friendly pink starfish named Peach (played by The West Wing’s Allison Janney), enlists Nemo to help them with an unlikely plan involving a toilet bowl and plastic baggies to escape the confines of the tank.
Adding to the fun factor are a trio of sharks (played by Barry Humphries, Eric Bana and Bruce Spence) who have sworn themselves to the mantra “Fish are friends, not food” as members of “Fish Eaters Anonymous,” a school of moonfish who arrange themselves into images to help Dory and poke fun at Marlin with a collective voice provided by Cheers’ John Ratzenberger (who has a long standing relationship with Pixar and plays a minor character in each of the studios’ films), and a friendly pelican strangely interested in dentistry played by Academy Award winner Geoffrey Rush.
Of course, Stanton couldn’t let the cast have all the fun and lent his voice to surfer dude hipster Crush, one of a clan of laid back sea turtles riding the East Australian Current who gives Marlin and Dory a ride after their particularly nasty encounter with a school of box jellyfish. Although Crush is only in the film for a few minutes, he plays an important role in Marlin’s development by giving him some sound, much needed advice on fatherhood, and in fact Stanton gets to convey the central lesson of the movie when Marlin asks his character about how parents can figure out when their kids are ready for the real world.
Finding Nemo also amazes from a technical perspective due to an incredible undersea world created by some of the most impressive computer animation techniques ever used in a feature film. Especially gratifying is the accurate portrayal of vision - distant objects are as blurry and unrecognizable in the murky depths of the ocean as they should be, and the whole movie has a sort of softness of focus, a realism born from various scuba diving trips the animators took to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
Nevertheless, even with this shroud of reality draped across the moving images on the screen, the world as perceived by Marlin, Dory and their aquatic friends is beautiful – from the cornucopia of colors adorning the reef Nemo calls home to the bubbly vortex of rushing water that is the East Australian Current, Finding Nemo is a breathtaking wonder to behold.
Considering how visually stunning the movie is, it’s puzzling that Disney has yet to release it on Blu-ray disc. As early as October 2006, the title has appeared in official lists of Disney movies that would be released on the high-definition format, and in January 2008, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment made an official announcement of the release, even going so far as to cite full motion picture-in-picture and a new 7.1 surround sound mix as features. However, the supposed release date of Fall 2008 came and went without so much as a whimper of news about when rabid fans like I could expect it.
Disney, the day you release Finding Nemo on Blu-ray is the day you make money hand over fist. The film is still your highest grossing cinematic release with a worldwide gross just shy of $866.6 million (The Incredibles came the closest to dethroning it with a little less than $635.6 million worldwide). So snap to it!
In conclusion, I highly recommend that anyone looking for a well written, visually impressive, funny, heart-warming family film that will tug at your heart strings while making you smile buy or rent Finding Nemo as soon as possible. I absolutely love this movie, and I honestly think that you’ll have a hard time not loving it, too.
Final score: 5 out of 5
Experience it for yourself!
