Finding Nemo

Okay I know I’m a bit late with this one and the world has seen the movie by now but hey, my short-term memory ain’t what it used to be.

Computer generated animation, at what point do we stop caring? Seems that we now take it totally for granted in as much as we don’t bother to mention it at all even when the whole movie is made using the process! So what marks out these films from others? Well in Pixar’s case it’s two things, story telling and characterisation. In the last few years Pixar have been responsible for creating some of the most memorable characters to hit the silver screen, not to mention the most merchandise since the Star Wars franchise kicked off back in the late 70’s.

On to the movie…The film revolves around a clownfish named Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks) who lives in the sunny Australian Great Barrier reef with his son, Nemo (voiced by Alexander Gould). Marlin is an overprotective dad due to the fact his wife and other 400 kids were eaten. This did seem a bit on the dark side to me as it happens right at the start of the movie as a prologue. Anyway, Marlin is left understandably scarred by all this and has a deep rooted fear of the big, bad ocean. His desire to protect his only remaining child has left a little resentment in Nemo as his father fusses and bothers about the slightest thing, cumulating in Nemo being fish-napped by some divers. At this point Marlin’s paternal instinct goes into overdrive as he begins his quest to find his son.

Along the way he meets many obstacles, as well as a plethora of characters that help his cause from vegetarian sharks to surfer dude turtles. Marlin's staunchest ally (whether she is actually of help or not is another question), is Dory (voiced by Ellen DeGeneres), a brightly coloured blue fish with a short-term memory problem of epic proportions. Meanwhile, Nemo is having an adventure of his own as he's placed in an aquarium in a dentist's office with a bunch of wacky fish reminiscent of the gang in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Lead by the scarred but tough Gill (voiced by Willem Dafoe), the only agenda in this tank is escape at any cost.

Nemo has quite a line-up of famous voices, along with the irrepressible Brooks, the wounded Dafoe and the ditzy DeGeneres, there's Allison Janney as the sarcastic starfish Peach who is the aquarium's constant lookout 'cause she's stuck to the side; Brad Garrett as blowhard blowfish Bloat, Geoffrey Rush as the kindly yet clumsy pelican Nigel; Aussie actor Barry Humphries (Dame Edna) as the Great White shark Bruce, a recovering fish-a-holic on a 12-step program; Pixar favorite John Ratzenberger as a collective school of moonfish who love to do impressions; and even writer/director Andrew Stanton gets in the act as the totally bitchin' turtle Crush.

They are all wonderful, but DeGeneres stands out as the best of the bunch as the confused Dory, who for the life of her cannot remember who Marlin is after about 30 seconds, let alone the name of his son, Elmo, er, Nemo, but is cheerfully positive anyway and she can speak whale… bound to come in handy. The comedienne nails the part and you can almost see those great Ellen expressions on Dory's face. In saying that, the scenes involving the seagulls did have me almost wetting myself with laughter.

So Pixar have done it again, they have kept Disney at the top for another year. Makes you wonder how many more of these fantastic family movies they can make before the imagination well dries up. Hopefully dozens even if the kids don’t want to go see them I sure as hell do.