Movie Reviews

I've seen a fair number of animated films (one of the overlooked greats that I always recommend to people is The Iron Giant), but I think Finding Nemo might just be the best animated movie I've ever seen.

It's a pretty simple, kid-friendly story about a father and son fish who have stuck together ever since the mother (and her hundreds of unborn eggs) were killed by a shark (actually, I guess that part -- and one or two others -- might be pretty intense for really young kids). During Nemo's first day of school, he's captured by an Australian diver, and placed inside a fishtank in a dentist's office. As the title of the film suggests, Marlin (the father, voiced by Albert Brookes) attempts to find where his son was taken and rescue him.

The first thing that struck me about Finding Nemo was how incredibly cool the CG animation looked. The film's coral reef setting allowed for a wide variety of different settings, and all of them were beautifully drawn and animated. The voice acting was excellent overall too, particularly by Ellen DeGeneres as Dory, a forgetful bluefish who meets up with Marlin and tries to help him along (other voices included John Ratzenberger, Geoffrey Rush, and Willem Dafoe). What was really most appealing about Finding Nemo, though, was it's sense of humour -- it's not just for the kids. There were plenty of jokes that would most likely just fly over the heads of younger viewers.

Like all of Pixar's previous work (the Toy Story films and Monster's Inc.), Finding Nemo is a really great film and will probably stand up as one of the best animated films of all time (there's a great little animated short before the main feature, too).