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Finding Nemo
(Reviewed June 19, 2003)
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Easily the worst of the Pixar/Disney movies, but still a beautiful thing to behold for the most part, with absolutely amazing computer animation.
Albert Brooks is a one-note whining fish in search of his lost son. Ellen DeGeneres is his off-the-scale annoying memory-challenged companion. The whole thing is very much geared to the "younger set," and by that I mean the under-10 set, with very little of the cleverness found in the "Toy Story" movies that appealed to older viewers. (Sadly, one holdover element from those movies is the "sadistic little monster human kid" archetype. This time, that character is manifested in the vicious, pet-killing daughter of the dentist in whose aquarium Nemo finds himself. She's not as repulsive as the toy-torturing neighbor boy from "Toy Story," but do audiences really need to be exposed to a kid who is known for shaking fish to death in plastic bags? Maybe some of Pixar's creative types could use a little therapy...)
Also, as always, the human characters look incredibly cheesy and fake in these movies. I can't figure out why the animators lavish so much attention on making everything but the humans look convincingly realistic in Pixar productions.
Oddly enough, the best thing about "Finding Nemo" is the short feature called "Knick Knack" that runs before it. Made by Pixar many years ago, this no-dialog gem about a snow-globe snowman who wants to join the fun his fellow shelf trinkets are having is clever, concise and has a lot of heart.
Back Row Grade: C for "Finding Nemo," "A" for "Knick Knack"
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