Finding Dory -
In MovieBob's Jurassic World review, he mentioned that the very first Jurassic Park was part of the "Three-Star Spielberg Club". I feel a similar sentiment about Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, and even Up to a certain extent. Finding Dory falls somewhere in between the "Three-Star Pixar Club" and Inside Out, Pixar's recent seeming attempt in returning to its former glory.
Speaking of which, whenever people talk about Pixar nowadays, they would always mention how Pixar has fallen from grace, as if Pixar always had a stellar track-record that doesn't only apply to Toy Story movies. They forgot about A Bug's Life for starters, and as mentioned, both Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo in hindsight were merely average animated movies, not as fantastic as The Incredibles or as groundbreaking as Toy Story 2 (or 3, depending on your perspective). I could name the few movies that are truly deserving of such high praises on one hand (counting the Toy Story trilogy, Ratatouille, The Incredibles, and MAYBE Inside Out, but that's too soon to really soak in retrospection). I personally had fell into this delusion myself in my younger days, but having recognized the tired cliches and run-of-the-mill cartoon gags plastered over every Dreamworks Animation movies these days, it's really hard to stay a loyal fan blindly defending blatantly average movies. I would still prefer Pixar's down-to-earth smart writing over Dreamworks' "let's make cartoon characters do goofy things" routine, of course, but being better than a pile of **** is hardly a worthy accomplishment.
And that's another thing about movies that I've come to realize. I appreciate the value of money, as I don't earn much myself. So if I'm going to throw my hard-earned cash at movies, I expect to have a great time, like "Empire Strikes Back" great time, not a "Return of the Jedi-eh-it-was-okay" kind of experience. There are countless movies coming out every year. I can't just blindly throw my money at whichever and hope that it might remotely entertain me, and reviews by the so-called "professional critics" are becoming more subjective the more I view those reviews in how I ended up disagreeing with them. Which is why this movie is making me take yet another step towards not paying money to movies I think I might not have a great time watching. Why support an industry that pull a half-assed effort? If Hollywood thinks that it can just churn out mediocre movies like the feminist Ghostbusters and "I would go see it anyway", they've got another thing coming. James Rolfe's sensibilities about not watching a movie and not giving Hollywood the ammunition are in the right place.
Also, one last thing before I finally get on to the movie: bad movies are fun to make fun of, great movies are fun to watch, but mediocre and boring movies are in an especially terrible place because there's no redeeming value.
That said, most of the stuff I just written had nothing to do with Finding Dory than it has to do with my feelings about paying for 3-star movies, which Finding Dory kinda is. But even so, it's actually a pretty solid sequel that adds depth and layers to the predecessor while having laughs and whimsies along the adventure... for the first viewing. The thing is, much like many animated movies out there today, Finding Dory relies heavily on humor. To me, comedy is really a hit-or-miss genre. Some comedies are funny the first time but become shoulder-shrugging during a second or third viewing, especially if their purpose is more to distract the audience rather than having anything meaningful to add to the plot. Those comedic scenes are good for individual viewing when you look them up on YouTube, but it can be trying to sit through the entire movie and watch them again. Finding Dory's jokes, while some of them are kinda clever in the Pixar tradition (not to mention having the traditional adult humor snark hidden in them), I do feel that they take away from the impact of Dory's emotional predicament rather than add to it, the same reason why I didn't think Finding Nemo was all that amazing.
However, it's probably an inevitable writing style anyone would have fallen into when writing a story as potentially dark as this. And yes, Pixar teased how dark such a story can really become in the first five minutes of the movie. No punches were held, and Andrew Stanton practically told the kids that there's no Santa Claus and Easter Bunny. Dory's backstory was difficult to sit through, especially if you suffer from mental conditions yourself. In that, it's a far more mature story than it might seem. And that's also where the problem comes in...
There were many times when Dory would flashback to her younger self when she remembered her parents. The whole idea of how sad and terrible it was for Dory to lose her parents was hit over your head over and over again, flashback after flashback, till the point it became a little melodramatic. The worst part is that the anti-climatic ending didn't pay off. It didn't measure to the kind of stakes the film was building itself up to. The pacing for the final act just derailed the film into a generic Dreamworks cartoon where the characters do stuff humans would do but in a goofy fashion. It's like Stanton didn't know how to end the story, so he instead just winged it and threw in a last minute action sequence.
And the story was incredibly contrived, relying on 'fate' and 'destiny'. This is a more debatable point in terms of its effectiveness of telling the story, however, as it does fit into the overarching theme of the plot, the whole irony of the situation. For me though, I feel it's sloppy and messy. It was a good attempt and I could see what they were trying to do in terms of coincidences and ironies, but the writing's a bit clunky.
All that taken into consideration, I still had a pretty good time, I'd admit, and most of the returning fans who grew up with the first movie would enjoy this. There were so MANY allusions to the first film, constantly teasing about that thing that happened back then in Finding Nemo with a wink to the audience. It's fun and nostalgic to look back at them, but I can't say fanservice like that makes for a very good story. This is the equivalence of Han saying "Chewie, we're home" in The Force Awakens. Again, debatable whether if such entertaining value makes for a good movie. I feel that it's only good for the first viewing and forgettable and even annoying in the consecutive ones.
Wow. Seems like there were a lot more problems with the movie than I had initially thought before writing this.
In the end, however, I can't stress enough that this is an important sequel to the first movie, because despite all the little problems clogging the script, it took the characters from Finding Nemo and added compelling layers to them like what a proper sequel should do. Marlin reflects on his mistakes as a parent, and Dory's constant forgetfulness can sometimes be more heartbreaking to watch than it is amusing. Nemo kinda just tags along for the ride, but he plays an important role to Marlin's character development due to having a disability as well like Dory, albeit a physical one. There's a lot of heart to be found in this movie, and that ending shot is both a satisfying resolution and a melancholic reminder of what was lost in the very first scene of Finding Nemo. It's a perfect bookend like Toy Story 3 in the traditional Pixar style.
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