Finding Nemo
(Click here
for Internet Movie Database entry)
OK, this is definitely not my
kind of movie. I'll admit that. And since I have no young children,
I don't see every movie of this genre. In fact, I still haven't seen Toy Story 2 or Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron.
But I did see Monsters Inc.
and Ice Age. Monsters Inc. had a good plot
and was not bad, although it got a bit snoozy in the middle. On the
other hand, Ice Age seemed to last as long as its name implied. I thought they'd
never get that damn baby back to its parents. Unfortunately, Finding Nemo
is much more like Ice Age. I thought they'd never get that
damn baby back to its parent. The plot, such as it is, follows a clownfish
(voiced by Albert Brooks) whose wife and all but one of her eggs were eaten
by a shark. He is understandably protective of his only surviving progeny,
Nemo (Alexander Gould). Despite this, Nemo is netted by a diver and
ends up in an aquarium in a dentists's office. The clownfish sets off
to find his son. zzzzzzzzzzzzz. Oh sorry, I fell asleep while
I was describing the plot. Anyway, the clownfish has many adventures,
picks up a sidekick ( Ellen DeGeneres) and, well, you don't want me
to spoil the ending. I'm sure you can't guess what happens.
It's all supposed to be very heartwarming and amusing.
The audience didn't laugh much but they seemed rapt. And they did applaud
at the end. I actually smiled at the last scene where the fish escape
from the aquarium. Since this is a Pixar movie, the animation is great,
although like other studios, they spend millions on the nice effects and
about two bucks on the script. Would it kill them to put in a few jokes for
the adults in the audience? Other cartoons like Shrek and Rocky & Bullwinkle had no
problem writing for young and old simultaneously. Finding Nemo is written
for 8 year olds and only 8 year olds. So repetition is very big. They
have two running jokes. One is that the clownfish isn't funny and the
second is that his sidekick has short-term memory loss. This way they
can repeat everything that happens endlessly. Well, you get the idea.
I'm sure you'll like it much better than I did.
