Gotta love animation … that fifteen hour flight to Australia? Color some blue, add some stoner turtles and we can get that sucker down to 90 seconds max. It begs the question, “why don’t we just take submarines when we cross the Pacific?” If I’m being honest, I sure don’t want to see all the travel; I don’t even like seeing it when I’m the one in the jet stream.
In 2003, Pixar gave us Finding Nemo, a film about Marlin (voice of Albert Brooks), a clownfish father searching the Western Pacific for his asymmetrical lost son, Nemo (Hayden Rolence). You might remember Marlin’s blue Hepatus Tang friend Dory (Ellen Degeneres), which is a good thing, because she sure doesn’t. Finding Dory takes no time whatsoever in establishing the memory-challenged Dory as the Uncle Billy of our generation. The movie starts with the adolescent figure of li’l blue with her ‘rents and everything is, dare I say? Hunky Dory. But Dory just don’t remember so good and this means she and her folks are soon separated. And with dejected voyeurism, we follow the fish through a montage of adolescence and early adulthood swimming further and further away from her parents and constantly wondering what it is she’s looking for – if that’s not a metaphor for the human condition, I’ve never seen one.
Dory herself is the epitome of upbeat and bubbly. I find her impossible to dislike, so when she suddenly (and quite conveeeeeeeeeeniently) remembers details of her pre-Nemo life, we are excited for her. The trigger in question points her towards Morro Bay, California and off our trio (Dory, Marlin, Nemo) go for their 90 second glide across the Pacific to the marine enclosure where all the action takes place. Now before the Right Wing gets all excited to brand Dory an undocumented alien terrorist and insist we build a wall around all marine preserves by the sea, do remember Dory was born here; we have her birth certificate on record, just like President Obama. Marlin and Nemo, however, are certainly alien freeloaders out to either steal jobs from local clownfish or form a terrorist sleeper cell near the beluga whale tank.
Hey, wait a minute. I read this week that Blue Tang don’t breed in captivity. So how could baby Dory have been born at the aquarium?! AHA! What say you, Pixar? Oh, right, Jim, like the rest of the film is a documentary. Sorry about that.
Part of the magic of the original Finding Nemo was the realization that while Nemo was physically lost, Marlin and Dory were metaphorically lost. In a way, they 
were all saving one another. Finding Dory is no different, exploring the themes of what makes a home a home and what makes a family a family. The Morro Bay aquarium specializes in healing sick fish, hence all of these creatures we meet are, in a way, lost. One we grow rather attached to is a cranky seven-legged octopus (“doesn’t that make you a ‘septapus?’ ” See, I could love this movie for that moment alone) named Hank (Ed O’Neill). Hank just wants to go to Cleveland. Geez, man, you must be lost – even LeBron James didn’t actually want to go to Cleveland.
Pixar has yo-yo’d once again. Inside Out was among the best films of 2015. Pixar followed this with a miserable December release The Good Dinosaur. Finding Dory is another strong win for Pixar, hampered only, perhaps by the fact that this is a sequel and we’ve met the three leads already. And, seriously, how old is Dory? She was clearly an adult in Nemo. Now, she’s a lost child. And shouldn’t Nemo have grown some in thirteen years? What’s the timeline on this film anyway? Screw it. Doesn’t matter. Enjoy.
♪Somewhere I’ll find Dory
She’s there sans memory
That Tang floats throughout the tanks
That handle the fish who need savin’
Somewhere her parents be
In that huge facility
Get that bird to fly on high
And avoid those arms
Of the patrons♫
Rated PG, 97 Minutes
D: Andrew Stanton, Angus MacLane
W: Andrew Stanton and Victoria Strouse
Genre: Home is memory
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: People who have lost
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Ichthyophobes
♪ Parody inspired by “Beyond the Sea”
