What I Think Of: Finding Nemo (2003)

Well I am back from my Cruise vacation to Bermuda, and I thought I'd go with an aquatic theme for this week of Movie reviews. To start, we'll go straight into the Pixar bin of quality with their aquatic masterpiece, Finding Fabio...Nemo! For me, it was around this film when I started to realize how good Pixar really was, in terms of just making fantastic film after fantastic film. Finding Elmo...Nemo is no excepetion to their list. Even the tag line of the poster on the left is priceless as well. "There are 3.7 Trillion Fish in the Ocean. They're looking for one."

The fish they are referring to are Marlin, voiced by Albert Brooks, and Dory, voiced by Ellen DeGeneres. Both put in an absolutely brilliant performance, once again showing how well Pixar chooses their voice actors. Marlin is an over-protective father, due to a tragedy in the opening of the movie, which is another one of Pixar's attempts to make me feel sad emotions. His son gets kidnapped by a diver, and he ventures out into the vast ocean to find him. Along the way, he meets Dory, a very forgetful fish who manages to help him on his journey. Meanwhile, Nemo is trapped in a fish tank in a Dentist's office with other fish, with more great voice acting choices, who've clearly gone somewhat crazy living in it, and has to get out before the Dentist's niece takes Nemo away for good. It is the journey itself where the film really shines. This is a film that can appeal to many parents out there, who are afraid to let their children out of there sight in fear of what might happen to them. In his search for his son, Marlin learns that he can't shield Nemo from the world forever, just like he can't be afraid of the world forever either.

Not just the main characters make the movie so good, but all the minor & really minor characters as well, from the Seagulls to the Swordfish to the Crabs. Pretty much like all Pixar films, I really can't say anything bad about this movie. I personally believe that Ellen really steals the show as Dory, putting in a simple hilarious & brilliant performance, which plays perfectly against Albert Brooks' Marlin. She knows exactly what to do whenever life gets her down.



If, for some reason, you haven't seen this film yet, please do. It's yet another masterpiece in Pixar's long list of masterpieces.

-Greg