Finding Dory Review

"I remember it like it was yesterday. Of course, I don't really remember yesterday all that well!"


Finding Dory was directed by Andrew Stanton and Angus MacLane and is the sequal to the highly successful Finding Nemo which was released back in 2003. Finding Dory stars the likes Ellen DeGeneres as Dory, Albert Brooks as Marlin, Hayden Rolence as Nemo, Ed O' Neill as Hank, Kaitlin Olson as Destiny and Ty Burrell as Bailey. The film follows Dory as she remembers her parents and goes on a journey to find and be reunited with her family, of course she is helped by Marlin and Nemo (our favorite clownfish duo) as they try and find Dory and help her in her journey to find her parents.

I just wanted to start of this review by saying that I am a huge fan of the original film so I really (and I mean really!) had very high hopes for this film and guess what.... I was not disappointed at all and personally I think Finding Dory is just as good as Finding Nemo, normally sequals don't live up to the original films but I really think this film does. Now lets get straight into what I enjoyed about this film. This film just like the original film gives you such as good feeling when you are watching the film but for me this film really has a really deep emotional level to the film, this mainly is created when exploring Dory's backstory and really creates some really emotional sequences through out the film (it really gets the emotions going!). The characters as always are still amazing to watch especially returning characters like Dory (baby Dory is the cutest thing ever!), Marlin and Nemo whose chemistry has not faded at all, but also the film introduces us to new characters as well for example Hank, Destiny and Bailey. One of the stand out characters is defiantly Hank, whose harsh and blunt characteristics really stand out compared to the other characters in the film and really gives him a fresh interesting personality which really stands outs (plus he can camouflage into his surroundings which lots great on the screen!) The film also has some beautiful animation and puts the animation on par with the beauty of the original film which really helps to bring us back to the world which Finding Nemo created back in 2003 whilst giving us some new and still visually beautiful locations.

On the other hand there are a couple of areas of the film that I was not to sure on but I have to be honest here I am really really being nit picky (I really am!). One area of the film that I was not to sure on was the pace of some of the sequences in the film, it seemed like scenes where just flying by without giving the film time to breathe, this was probably down to the fast paced editing style of some of the sequences but this is not necessarily a bad thing, as it really kept the films plot flowing but I maybe would of just liked a bit more time to ease into the story. I also thought some of the cameos were a little unnecessary, there were some really good cameos especially by the likes of Mr Ray and his school class (still all from the original film!) but some cameos for example Crush's cameo felt really wasted and seemed like it was only put in the film just to please the fans, if he had a longer more important role then I would understand it but in the film it just flies by and seems a little unnecessary but hey that is me just being harsh.  

Overall I would highly recommend this film, especially for families who I think will really love this film, but also for people who grew up watching and loving Finding Nemo just like me, you will defiantly love this film just as much as I did. I also have to give a mention to the Pixar animation short film that was shown in front of Finding Dory called Piper directed by Alan Barillaro, which is literally amazing and is one of the stand out Pixar short films that I have seen in years.

Verdict: 5 out 5 stars