Finding Dory

The movie wasn't bad. On the other hand, I've seen much better stuff from Pixar, and the constant play on emotions was annoying. It’s enough that I have to put up with that in regular films. The animation was of course excellent, the underwater (and aquarium) life looked magnificent. I enjoyed the movie, except for the heartbreaking scenes which were pretty much unnecessary. (11/20/2016)

Because it took thirteen years to make this sequel, the screenwriters had enough time to think about it properly; I did not believe it would be a disaster. On the other hand, I was expecting that it would be much more of a mess by focusing the narrative on Dory as the main protagonist. In the end, the result is very good, and Pixar has managed to keep the bar of this franchise still very high. The animation is, of course, perfect, and the characters, both the old ones and the new ones, are also very good. The narrative does feature a few minor quirks, although I could not find anything majorly bothersome. The ending was good, and I found the moment with Dory and Marlin interestingly profound. So, in the end, they pulled Finding Dory off really well, though I do not know why, although I was expecting a bit more. 8/10. (06/19/2016)

Naturally, it’s much weaker than the great first one for a number of simple reasons. Firstly, it basically replicates the same thing, the only difference being that it's a constant one-on-one search throughout, and the motif of wandering through a choppy ocean has completely disappeared in favour of splashing around in the same place. Secondly, although Dory is an effective secondary character who, with her stupidity, was a suitable complement to the brooding Marlin, as the protagonist she becomes boring after a while, and also very annoying. And thirdly, there’s a dangerous lack of good supporting characters, of whom only Hank the octopus blindly driving a truck will gain any real sympathy (I was very disappointed by the absence of the aquarium fish from Sydney). Despite all this, it's still satisfyingly funny, there's always something going on (except for the obligatory moments of moralising and hugging) and the final action set-piece inspired by Inception, complete with “What a Wonderful World”, is even, to put it bluntly, one of the most accomplished of the whole year. If there's another instalment, it should have a completely new concept and include veterans of the original film, which, unlike Dory, we remember and will never forget... (02/03/2017)

The problem I have with Finding Dory is that the entire narrative is essentially based on her short-term memory problem, which doesn’t seem like enough to me. I'm not saying that this interaction and collision with reality wasn't funny at all, just that unfortunately all the "short term memory" jokes soon become repetitive and simply boring. Compared to its predecessor, this sequel is overall less funny and paradoxically contains more of the serious scenes, which instead generate negative emotions. But I just have to give it an extra half star for that Mark Eben. 3.5 stars. (03/25/2019)

Sure, this isn't Finding Nemo, or rather, it's not as good. But the return to the characters, the development of what we've seen, some nostalgic encounters, and new encounters, all work here, as well as the nice and touching story that brought a tear to my eye. You simply want to come back to these characters because they're still great. (08/01/2016)