Movie Review: Finding Dory

This week it almost feels like I am jumping back in time to when I was just a toddler. Apparently, Finding Nemo was my first movie in theaters and favorite movie as a young child. Of course, me being two, I don't remember much of back then. I still know the movie though, but because I have watched it a lot more after that. But, the past aside, I hope you enjoy my review on Finding Dory.

The movie starts with a young Dory (voiced by Sloane Murray) introducing herself to her parents, Charlie (voiced by Eugene Levy) and Jenny (voiced by Diane Keeton), as practice for when she meets other fish. They start to play a game of hide and seek, but after just a couple of numbers Dory forgets and starts playing with the sand. When she looks at her parents and sees their faces she asks them "Did I forget again?" She then gets worried about whether she will forget her parents and if they will forget her. They comfort her by saying they would never forget her.

A few weeks later we find the same young Dory asking people if they had seen her parents, as she had lost them. As time goes on she forgets what she lost, only that she had lost something. That leads us into a mini recap of the Finding Nemo story when Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks) and Dory (voiced by Ellen DeGeneres) first run into each other. This leads us to the beginning of this story, one year later.

The voice acting was very good in most all of the movie. The way that Ellen campaigned to have a Finding Dory movie, I expected nothing but the best from her, and she gave us that. What I enjoyed was hearing a young actor be the voice for Nemo again, this time voiced by Hayden Rolence. It continued the authenticity of the original Finding Nemo to this movie. I have to say, though, my favorite character was in fact Hank, the cranky octopus missing one leg voiced by Ed O'Neil. He really rounded out the cast and brought more depth to the movie.

The story plot was a little scattered here and there, but followed the same path towards the end. The scattering of the plot made it seem better in a way, however. In a way it really helped us understand what it was like to be Dory. The only thing negative I would have to say is that it does seem a little over repetitive after a while. I understand that is how Dory remembers things, but maybe a little less would have made this a perfect movie. The animation was also very good in this movie. This is definitely one of Disney and Pixar's better animated movies, while still following the same style of Finding Nemo.

Overall, the voice acting was excellent, the story plot was a little spread out, and the animation was really good. Some things would have been changed if I were able to, but not much, so I would rate this movie 8.8/10.