Finding Dory

FINDING DORY

Director : Andrew Stanton
Year : 2016
Genre : Animation
Rating : ****

13 years after participating in one of the most daring rescue attempts in movie history, cinemas most popular amnesiac returns with a splash to the big screen in 'Finding Dory', the utterly delightful and gloriously animated sequel to Pixar's 2003 Academy Award winner 'Finding Nemo'.

Having helmed both the 2008 Oscar champion 'WALL-E' and 2012's box office bomb 'John Carter', Andrew Stanton finds himself once again in safe waters directing this charming and incredibly entertaining tale that, in the grand tradition of Pixar, manages to balance well-earned laughs and gut-wrenching emotion without ever drowning us in sappy sentiment. 

Ellen DeGeneres is once again terrific as the voice of the eponymous Dory, the forgetful yet lovable regal blue tang fish who after experiencing several unprecedented flashbacks comes to realise that she has a family somewhere in the deep, vast ocean. With a reluctant Marlin (Albert Brooks) and an enthusiastic Nemo (Hayden Rolence) in tow, Dory's quest takes her to a Californian marine park where she meets a wide range of strange and funny characters all willing to help her find her parents including an old whale shark friend who suffers from shortsightedness (Kaitlin Olsen), a beluga who appears to have forgotten how to echolocate (Ty Burrell) and Hank - a hilariously cantankerous acrobatic octopus voiced by 'Modern Family's Ed 'O Neill whose wide ranging camouflage abilities provide 'Finding Dory' with some of its most memorable and inventive sight gags.

As is the case with any Pixar movie, 'Finding Dory' is consistently wonderful to look at - with the majestic blues of the sea contrasting nicely with shards of shimmering sunlight and the multicoloured scales and fur of it's many CGI inhabitants. But if there was one word to perfectly describe the film,  it would most definetely be 'cute'. From the opening seconds of 'Piper', the absolutely adorable CGI short that precedes it to it's beautifully sombre finale, 'Finding Dory' brims with both heart and soul and while it may lack the thematic depth of it's award-laden predecessor, the film still manages to be a delightful time under the waves for both small fry and old salts alike.