Tag Archives: Pixar

Finding Dory Review

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Are you ready? It’s time to take a look at the Finding Nemo sequel. I saw the original quite a few times over the years and even purchased the game recently. It’s definitely a fun series. Finding Dory takes itself a little more seriously at times and makes Dory’s past a little sadder than is used to be. It’s a pretty solid film that actually has a great ending so don’t listen to the doubters. Everyone told me what a bad ending the film had so I was expecting something really sad or tragic, but it was actually solid. Ah well, maybe people weren’t ready for a happy ending this time.

Dory wakes up one morning and realizes that she has parents. She sort of knew this deep down, but now she realizes that she has to go find them. They’re over by the aquarium/sea world park that Dory used to be at. It’ll be quite the journey, but it’s worth it to find her folks. She gets Nemo and Marlin to help her out with this. Getting across the planet would be tough for most fish…but Marlin knows a guy. The three of them set out and prepare for a big adventure, but little do they know that the team will be splitting right away.

Marlin was surprisingly a great character here. Maybe he always was and I just forgot about it. His “I know a guy” line was easily the best one in the film thanks to the great delivery (Pause and slow build up) and the way that he looked to the side while saying it. Marlin’s a little more confident than he used to be and since he did rescue Nemo from crazy circumstances, he has a right to be. He also comes through in the clutch when it matters and shows that he is a team player. I can’t say the same for Nemo though. Nemo’s very annoying in this film as he constantly takes shots at Marlin and acts like a know it all. Any scene with Nemo is one where I had to wince a little inside. It feels like Nemo hasn’t improved at all since the fist film and if anything…he’s gotten worse.

Dory is a nice character as always. Her origin was especially tragic this time as he memory got a lot worse. It was mostly just used as comedy in the first film while it’s very serious and dramatic this time. I would have preferred if it wasn’t so serious, but Dory gets through her trials with determination and persistence. She comes up with a plan in the end and has her big moment. Dory may not be as likable as Marlin, but she’s a good character. Dory’s just not my kind of protagonist and I don’t think she can hold her own film, but the subplots had enough screen time where it wasn’t too much of an issue. I still think that this film should have been about finding Nemo’s Mom, but maybe that’ll be for the third film in the trilogy.

Hank is one of the new characters for the film and he is definitely great. Hank is one of the standouts here as he plays the tough James Bond esque role. He has a lot of experience and has seen things over the years. He just wants to give up and head to the land of peace, but Dory is in his way. He agrees to help her in exchange for a pass that will get him there, but it’s a tougher ordeal than he would have thought since Dory keeps forgetting the plan. He had a lot of the witty banter and great lines in the film. It’s safe to say that he made the film a lot better.

Dory also had other friends who appeared like Destiny and other aquatic animals who wanted to pitch in. They were a little too quirky, but weren’t bad characters in the end. They’re nice pals to have around and it was good for Dory that they showed up. Still, they could have been a little more interesting. The main cast from the first film are the ones who really had to hold the film on their own with the exception of Hank since he was a really good new character.

One thing that subtlety holds Finding Dory back is the character roster. Even the best characters are only pretty good. There are no downright great characters. The closest two are Marlin and Hank. The problem is that Hank’s character was already used in Zootopia, but handled better. Marlin’s character type hasn’t been done all that often, but while he is fun, he isn’t a show stealer. Aside from those two characters, the rest of the cast struggle to be passable. Some of the characters are just really annoying like the two seals and the bird. The bird should have been cool, but did the film have to give him the worst design possible? I actually had a problem with quite a few of the designs. Even baby Dory looked a little off as the eyes were so big that it looked physically painful.

The animation was good overall though so I don’t want to take shots at it. It’s the character designs that are to blame here. I can’t say that the animation is much better than Finding Nemo’s though and considering how old that film is…it’s certainly worth noting. Unfortunately, there isn’t really a soundtrack to be found here. You won’t remember any of the tunes afterwards, which is a little regrettable. On a technical level, the film is all right. It gets the job done, but nothing more to that.

Finally, another problem is that you’re just never invested in the film. It goes through the motions and you follow along, but that’s about it. The story isn’t boring or anything….but it’s just not that exciting either. This last bit of the review may sound rather negative, but it’s just because the film could have been so much more. As it is, it’s a good film that is good for a quick watch, but you probably won’t want to be re watching it anytime soon.

To end this review on a high note, lets go back to the ending. After everyone told me how bad it was, I expected the parents to either be A. really mean or patronizing once they were found or B. Dead. If either of those scenarios had happened, this could have dropped to a 5. Luckily, the ending was really good. I’m guessing people thought that it was too happy and perfect or something like that, but I could definitely get into it. I also ended up liking Dory’s parents. Their roles were naturally very small, but they were likable and I’m sure that a third film could find a good role for them.

Overall, Finding Dory was a good sequel. It’s not quite as good as the original Finding Nemo if you ask me, but the film goes along at a brisk pace and doesn’t get boring. The writing is certainly on point and I actually really liked the ending. It was a highlight. While this film won’t move you the same way that Inside Out, Zootopia, Frozen, and other big animated films as of late have, it is still a good movie. I’d recommend checking it out if you haven’t already. You don’t really need to watch Finding Nemo to enjoy this film since they recap it through dialogue anyway, but you should check out the first film as well. It’s a classic at this point.

Overall 6/10

Inside Out Review

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Inside Out was a fun animated film. I’d say that it was a bit better than I expected although I did find one of the main characters to be pretty annoying and the moral at the end of the film was pretty iffy. I can’t say that I agreed with it or at least the way that it was handled. Still, Inside Out holds its own here and the writing is solid.

Imagine a world where humans were actually complex machines which had their emotions become tangible beings that can control the person’s actions. Each emotion had a role to play and they worked in harmony to control every decision that you made. If they were to ever have a big disagreement and split up, then the human robot would shut down for a brief amount of time. The film goes into the details of how the human machine works in great detail, which is pretty fun. The actual plot of the film follows Joy as the main character.

Joy is essentially the ideal character. She’s extremely optimistic and always tries to see the positives in a situation. It’s easy to root for her and she does her best to ensure that every day is a good one. Unfortunately, Sadness wants to corrupt everything that she touches and gets Joy into a lot of trouble as the two of them fall away from the control center. They must now make it back to the human robot quickly or the girl’s social life will be ruined. After all, how can a person have a good life without any joy or sadness? The only emotions left are disgust, anger, and stress. Definitely not a good way to live there. Can Joy make it back or will Sadness continue to hold her back?

It’s probably obvious from the summary, but I do not like Sadness. She’s a debbie downer and the kind of person who doesn’t even enjoy Christmas. Essentially every line that she has is a complaint or a sigh where she tries to make everyone feel bad. Not content with just making herself sad, she tries to bring down the mood for everyone else as well. Sadness even goes as far as to corrupt the human’s happy memories and turn them into sad ones. In case you think that this is all just an accident and Sadness doesn’t mean it…think again. She does this on purpose. There are several times when Joy tells Sadness not to touch anything, but she does anyway. She ignores the warnings and causes as much damage as possible. Typically, she’ll do this immediately after being warned, which makes the whole situation even worse.

Joy is the opposite and ends up being a very good character. She’s essentially perfect. A character who’s always determined and likes to do things the right way. I’ve already talked about her so let’s move on to the next character. Disgust probably gets the smallest role out of the emotions and I can’t say that she’s a good character either. I don’t even consider Disgust to be a primary emotion, but I suppose that we were running out of them by this point. She doesn’t help out at all either here so the group would have been better off without her. At least she doesn’t openly try to put the team in jeopardy though.

Nervousness or whatever the emotion is officially called is decent. He’s always stressed out about everything that’s happening in the world so he’s on top of his game. He was even one step ahead of Joy when she asked him to write down a list of the things that can go wrong. Stress always brings his A game and he’s not afraid to go for the win. Finally, we have Anger, who’s another solid character. It’s always fun to see him grab the controls and blow up as he goes for the win. He tends to lose, but he talks a good game and Anger has more character than most of the other emotions. He certainly doesn’t let himself get pushed around although he tends to make the situation worse for his human.

Aside from the emotions, we’ve also got the other humans who have emotions of their own. We typically don’t see the other emotions, but it’s always interesting to see their other views. This even applies to dogs, cats, and just about anything else. The parents get a decently large role here. They’re pretty nice and the whole situation with the house can be a bit dicey, but they weren’t over the top as far as being unreasonable goes so the main character had no reason to be mad at them. It’s all because Joy wasn’t there of course, but you’ll just feel bad for them. That being said, there’s no logical reason why a pizza store wouldn’t have pepperoni. I think that was a bit iffy if you ask me and the scene could have been written better if we needed a situation to give the main character some tension. Bing Bong is an imaginary friend who couldn’t keep up with the opponent which goes by the name of age. I definitely didn’t mind him leaving the film as he was another character that I didn’t like. He nearly destroyed Joy by not thinking about what his secret short cut really was. His rocket was decent, but if you were supposed to cry for Bing Bong at the end..I can safely say that it didn’t happen in my case. He wasn’t the kind of character that you would get very attached too and he was just too much. If only Bing Bong had been cooler as I did like the name.

The film isn’t too short, which is good since it gives us some time to see all of the characters and explore this concept. I like the concept behind the idea that our emotions are actually sentient beings who control the human shells from within. A whole movie can be made about that…and it was! That being said, I didn’t agree with how the moral was presented as mentioned above. Basically, we are supposed to wrap our heads around the fact that our happy memories have sadness with them and that makes them even better. LOL No!

Let me give you an example. Brace yourselves here. I remember a few years back when I managed to acquire pounds and pounds of chocolates to save for my birthday. Dozens of different bags of chocolate chips, cookies, brownies, ice cream, and more were assembled. Seriously, we probably spent over 200 dollars on snacks alone for the Birthday, but it was worth it! I grabbed a huge Turkey container (Think of a big pan for pasta, but deep enough to fill in 3x that) and I stuffed the snacks inside before eating. I ate for hours and hours until my stomach was so full and I was so stuffed that my teeth began to hurt. Do I want to remember my teeth hurting? No, I block that out and just remember how amazingly good the pot of snacks was. My point is that happy memories are epic because they are happy. We don’t need any sadness messing that up.

Sadness does help us develop our character and make us better people, but it doesn’t mean that we have to corrupt our happy memories. That’s exactly the train of thought that makes people so miserable in day to day life. Whenever someone says that they aren’t looking forward to Christmas or always has a pouting expression on their face, I feel like facepalming myself. Enjoy every day folks because that’s the point of life. While we’re living, we may as well be having a blast. So, I feel like Inside Out dropped the ball on that, but it’s fine…we can’t win them all.

The animation is all right. It’s not really my style and I’ve seen animation from a decade ago and even older than that, which looks better. Still, this American Animation is really well liked and gets good reviews, but give me something a little flashier and I’ll be happy. The human characters are drawn in that intriguing CGI style that lets you immediately know that this is an American film. While we are way ahead of Japan in Live Action, they are decades ahead of us in animation. At this point, I’ve accepted the gap as a fact in life, but maybe we can change that someday.

Overall, Inside Out is a good film and it deserves the positive reviews. I had fun watching it and the film does a good job of world building. It’s an interesting film from start to finish and it never drags on. Good films don’t need action scenes to be enjoyable as this one proves, but then the writing has to be on point. Luckily that was the case here. I’m not ready to say that it’s as good as Frozen as the ice themed film still has the edge, but this one is on the same level. It just needed a super catchy song to keep up with Frozen and that didn’t happen. Take Sadness away from the film completely and who knows…maybe it could have won! I don’t think a sequel would be as good though. Certainly not if we had any hintings of romance. The emotions inside of the mom were already pretty iffy and it was an unnecessary scene that they had. The ending helped to stop that, but things could have been dicey. I still want a sequel though, but let’s make it a direct to DVD futuristic robot action adventure story to shake things up.

Overall 7/10