Beautiful animation. (As always from Pixar) Check!!
Great voices and music. Check!!!
Great fun. Well, I suppose. Check!
Great story. Not so much...
I don't know what to say. On one side it's technically brilliant...on the other...rather lacking in the story compartment. Kids will love it of course, but more for the colors and the sound mix than the story...
I hope they will do better next time. But by all means...Brave is watchable if you just want to entertain the spawn.
Gorgeous scenery, beautiful animation, and wonderful voice casting. Enjoyable to watch yet the story seemed somewhat lacking from what we expect from the Pixar studios.
Absolutely adorable and heartwarming. Will steal your heart.
I lava this so very much! A simple but yet so beautiful short movie, with a little taste of Vaiana (visually). Perfect!
Still gets me teary, years later.
When she came facing the wrong way my heart sank! I knew it would have a happy ending but that moment really got me.
So cute. Incredibly catchy too!
Not one of Pixar's best but dammit... they still made me shed a tear.
While it may not be a Pixar masterpiece like Inside Out, or Toy Story, The Good Dinosaur delivers visually beautiful animation, dinosaur-sized fun, and a sweet and touching story of friendship.
Amazing. A strong plot. An amazing pacing. Characters you can sympathize with. Strong, heartfelt moments. The movie also didn't scream "I'm a sequel" all the time, it had numerous easter-eggs to Finding Nemo, but it found its own way to convince, rather than trying to recreate the "magic" of Part 1. Also, the animation is g-orgeous.
I'm a grown man, and admit I almost cried as some points. Movie of the years, to me.
[8.0/10] One of the great things about Finding Nemo was the way it was a story about parents and children that was told from both perspectives. The easy thing to do would have been to make the story just about Marlin’s quest to find his son, with Nemo relegated to being a cute macguffin, or to make it about Nemo’s adventures away from home, with his dad simply arriving in the nick of time. Instead, the film does both, giving both characters memorable stories and engaging with their point of views, to where each grows and finds common ground by the climax of the film.
Finding Dory repeats this trick, but finds an interesting new direction for it by making it a story about disabilities: how they affect the people who have them, their parents, and their friends, without shortchanging either of them. It addresses Dory’s short term memory loss -- something that was mostly played for laughs in the prior film, though notably for emotional ballast as well -- and explores the ways that difference would affect the rest of Dory’s life and those around her in a more direct way.
It’s too far to call Finding Dory a deconstruction in that regard. The film is still a fun adventure with big laughs and colorful characters. But it succeeds in taking this amusing quirk that Dory displayed in the first film, and using it as a lens to examine the challenges that someone with physical or mental disabilities, and their loved ones, would face.
That comes through in Marlin and Nemo. Marlin is, again, frustrated with Dory. He tries to be patient and supportive, but when things go wrong and Nemo is in trouble again, he loses his cool and says something hurtful to Dory based on her condition. It’s a harsh moment, one that Nemo is aghast about as he defends Dory to his father. It speaks to the difficulties in understanding, in connecting, that come from friends and loved ones with such differences that can pop up and emerge from even those closest to someone.
It also comes through in Dory’s parents, Jenny and Charlie. The film has repeated flashbacks to the pair teaching Dory when she was a baby (and, it has to be said, baby Dory is just frickin’ adorable). The film captures the unique obstacles parents of children with disabilities face. There is a complete love and devotion from Jenny and Charlie, but also a concern. There are many scenes of these parents trying to encourage their daughter, but also to equip her for the outside world, to give her coping skills and tools to be able make it. They are endlessly loving, but also endlessly worried. The most harrowing scene in the film is where Dory overhears her mother crying and fretting about whether Dory will be able to make it on her own if something should happen to her or to them.
But most of all it comes through in Dory herself. The main story of the film sees her recovering fragments of memories from her childhood that hint to where her parents might be, which prompts her to go on a quest to find them. It shows her dealing with the thrill of those flashes and memories coming back, but also the struggles that trying to achieve all of this while forgetting so much so frequently poses.
And yet, she perseveres and succeeds. The tools her parents came up with live on in her. Even if Dory cannot remember every detail, she left her home having internalized the capability her parents tried to instill. She is resourceful. She knows to just keep swimming. Yes, sometimes she needs some assistance -- like from the camouflaging septopus Hank who becomes her reluctant running buddy -- but as Nemo points out to his dad, she has a way of figuring these things out, of intuitively understand the solutions to problems that no one else can piece together. Dory is different, yes, but no less capable or vital to the efforts of their little family, even if she occasionally requires a little extra help or patience.
The problem is that at some point, it feels as though the film has thrown one too many obstacles in Dory’s path, to where the set of hurdles she has to leap (or rather, swim) over begin to feel exhausting. To some degree this is the film earning its emotional crux, making the moments where it seems like the object of her quest is impossible, and the moments of warm reunion in the movie more impactful given what led the characters to those point. But at some point in the film, it feels like a few too many trials placed in front of Dory to get to the payoff.
At the same time, the movie does suffer from a certain amount of sequelitis. While it’s nice to check in with the assorted characters from the first film, at points their appearances feel like pandering. While it offers a new twist, Finding Dory’s attempts to replicate the beats of its predecessor begin to feel a little convenient in places. And the film’s also subject to the “go bigger” follow-up problems, particularly in the third-act action sequences that involves bridge-too-far implausibilities and over-extended set pieces that involve sea creatures driving cars.
Still, even when the picture sags, Pixar knows how to fill a movie with life. There are plenty of new fun characters, from a pair of territorial sea lions voiced by a pair of alums from The Wire, to some similarly differently-abled aquatic animals from a nature center, to another funky bird to compete with the seagulls from the last film. And the humor and charming dialogue shine throughout.
But the film’s best feature is the way it takes the idea of disability and shows all sides of how it affects people’s lives. It embraces the insecurity and hardships that entails, but also the way people like Dory enrich the lives of people around them, the way that they are capable and resourceful even if they go about things differently, and how the love of their families, both biological and adopted, stretches across oceans.
I thought I was gonna be one of the few grownups in the theater. The room was full of grownups, Teenagers and young adolescents who waited 13 years for this movie.
While the first film was never my favourite of the Pixar collection growing up, I do have fond memories of watching it countless times. Which is why I was apprehensive when Disney announced a sequel after all this time. However overall I was impressed with the film. It does that old tried and tested Pixar trick of making a film that can be enjoyed by both kids and adults.
Is this film as good as the first? No not by a long shot. Though that’s partly nostalgia. I do enjoy most of the new characters (excluding the echolocation dolphin), and the callbacks to previous side characters like Crush were a nice touch.
This is going to sound a pretty stupid statement to make a hour an animated kids film about talking fish, but my main problem was believe ability. Hear me out though. The fish never did anything too wild in the first film, mostly swimming around the ocean, or at most getting around in water bags and pipes. This time we have scenes involving Hank the octopus blazingly roaming around the marine park in a stoker stroller, just while the punters wander around seemingly oblivious, even after it strikes are random toddler. And then don’t even get me started on the final scene of them hijacking the truck and getting into a police chase.
Again I know that sounds a silly statement to make about a kids film with talking fish. So make of that what you will. But overall it’s a good film. If you enjoyed the first, then you will definitely also enjoy this.
Back to the pond for Pixar, where we find things largely unchanged from the end of 2003's Finding Nemo. As the continually-forgetful blue tang Dory has a sudden enduring flash of her childhood, a rush of unfamiliar recall, she gathers the clownfish for one more globe-spanning adventure.
The setup is a little soft, lingering too long in the shadow of the first film, but eventually we break free of that sentiment and forge a new (if similar) identity for the sequel. The closed-in landscape of an aquatic themed zoo/amusement park feels a bit claustrophobic at first glance, but as hijinx ensue and we learn more of Dory's early years, it all fleshes out nicely. No shortage of colorful new characters there, literally and figuratively, not the least of which is Ed O'Neill's escape artist "septipus" (having lost a tentacle in the touch tank), who treads dangerously close to becoming a deus ex machina with his versatility. O'Neill brings his usual disgruntled pessimism to the role, though, and some genuinely clever sight gags using the creature's natural assets go a long way to smoothing that over. He's overly convenient, but we're always glad to see him again.
Witty and fast-paced, with a good mix of gags for the adults and their kids, plus a potent dose of the studio's famed poignancy. I laughed, I misted up, but I never quite fooled myself into thinking it was superior to the first.
This is the cutest bird EVER I loved it <3
This was so adorable. But, man, it almost made me cry as well.
Surprisingly good for a franchise that has been worn out for a long time. The themes of aging and adapting to new generations and ones lot in life is pretty poignant. It's easily the best of the series to me.
The third iteration of this movie and the plot twist was smartly done. The kids loved it and it's just as endearing as always. McQueen and the team up against new technologu which takens them down an unpaved road. A great family movie with a plethora of great characters.
I am so glad that we got back to Lightning McQueen in this movie. The last movie was all Mater and while he makes a great, funny best friend/sidekick, he was pretty annoying as the lead. So we get back to what made Cars great in the first thing and now we come full circle with McQueen now facing what the Hudson Hornet faced in his time. There was a message in setting aside all the tech and getting back to real training, to getting your tires dirty. And while I enjoyed the movie, I was a bit disappointed by the ending. I still think McQueen had more in him. But he handles things on his own terms and overall it was an good sequel; good, not great, but still enjoyable.
Creed of the Cars franchise! Utter joy how they took a nostalgic angle with a bunch of critic of the new era of techonology. But even that didn't feel they wanted to pushed down their vision of the audiences' throats. McQueen-Doc Hudson scenes made me cry a bit.
I really love this movie. You can feel the Mexican magic every minute. Thank you Pixar for this gorgeous movie!
This is such an amazing movie! Everything perfect: the story is amazing and according to my Mexican friends quite accurate (about the cultural and traditional aspects), the animations are incredible (you can see every little detail and feel like you're actually in the movie – not because of the 3D version but of the sharpness and realism of the physics and everything), you have a lot to laugh about and a lot to cry about. This is just incredible. I loved how you are drawn into the movie with all the Spanish they're talking – doesn't need subtitles. Just loved it!
A film that made me cry, laugh, and care. A true example of Perfect.
Gloriously rich, both in colour and emotion. This is Pixar at it's best.
World Premiere Review:
Not as good as the original, but totally worth going to see in the theaters. I don't think I've laughed this much at a Pixar film since the the first one. This one didn't seem to have as much "heart" as the original as this felt almost like a revival for this particular franchise than an actual sequel. Fun for adults and kids. Baby steals the show.
Fun bit with Rex. I like Rex actually knowing about the history of real dinosaurs, and Forky’s obliviousness is a good comic mode. These already have something of a rhythm which becomes less novel as you go, but they’re short and sweet, so it still works.
Not my favourite of the Sparkshorts, which I am just adoring, but still a beautifully constructed piece. I really hope Disney and Pixar keep this kind of content going, because they're amazing and inspiring.
