Review: Finding Dory (2016)

My ratingIMDbRotten Tomatoes
CriticsAudienceCriticsAudience
9/1077/1008.2/1094%91%
Numbers obtained from IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes on June 21, 2016.

I liked Finding Nemo so much back in 2003 that I went to the movies several times when it was released. I watched it in Spanish, English and Portuguese just to see the different voices chosen in each language. I enjoyed the whole story and, obviously, fell in love with Dory (Ellen DeGeneres). That’s why I was so excited to see Finding Dory, after long 13 years of waiting! And I can tell you now that I was not disappointed!

The film is set one year after Nemo (Hayden Rolence) has been found and Dory begins to remember her family and decides she will look for her parents. Marlin (Albert Brooks) and Nemo decide to help her but she ends up getting lost from the group.

Unlike the previous one, in which the search for Nemo took over the oceans, Dory mostly takes place in the Institute of Marine Life. There she meets the hilariously grumpy octopus Hank (Ed O’Neill), who becomes her guide. Throughout the film Dory has flashbacks and remember fragments of her past, including her parents (Diane Keaton and Eugene Levy).

The message in Finding Dory is, in my opinion, more beautiful and deeper than the one from the previous film. In this movie, the characters learn to accept their different characteristics and to find solutions whenever they are in situations in which there seems to be no way out. The question “What Dory would do”? is repeated throughout the film just to show us that Dory – the character who does not make plans, is not organized and does not know the consequences of her actions due to her short term memory loss – can always find a solution and see the bright side of things (“just keep swimming…”).

There is enough comedy in the story but there are also sad moments (I heard people crying in the theater…). Despite these more serious moments, I believe the young audience will be thrilled with the story. And the audience a little older, like me, but a fan of the Disney / Pixar, will also leave the theater with a smile on their faces.


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