Drew Turney
The critics (and audiences) fawened all over this movie, and while it is worthy of praise, it hasn’t really done anything above and beyond what it’s predecessors have done. It’s only really as good as ”Toy Story” and ”Monsters Inc”, whereas previous Pixar films have tended to outshine their predecessors in turn.
Marlin (Brooks) is a clownfish living in the barrier reef. When he loses his whole family but one unborn son, who he calls Nemo, he becomes overprotective and neurotic.
When Nemo’s captured by deep sea divers and taken to a dentists waiting room fishtank in Sydney, Marlin teams up with a fish with a memory problem (Degeneres) to follow the coast and rescue him.
Even though it doesn’t raise the bar for Pixar films, it’s a forgivable failing – the bar was (and is) very high to begin with. A standout of their movies is a brilliant script, lighting-paced, with just enough sugary warmth to remind you it’s a Disney movie and with enough grown up jokes to keep adults as enthralled as kids.
The story is extremely well paced, well cast, and the animation is so perfectly seamless you forget you’re watching a computer generated cartoon – it’s hard to know if that’s a good thing or not at first, but on reflection, showing you the world depicted with perfect clarity can have you believing sharks hold AA style meetings to swear of eating their smaller cousins and fish do really want to escape from tanks.
As much a triumph of technical finesse and storytelling as we expect from Pixar, no more and no less.
Presented in 3D at select cinemas.
