strange radiation: the pool of radiance archive
Adventures with an unreliable narrator.
« etymology; ornithology | Main | roamers’ holiday »
Jun 22 03: review: Finding Nemo
Yes, yes, yes. Finding Nemo is yet another pitch-perfect Pixar movie, this one about the adventures of Marlin, a single-dad clownfish crossing the ocean to find his son, Nemo, who has been abducted by a dentist from Sydney and popped into a fishtank. Albert Brooks is great as the menschy, anxiety-prone Marlin. However, the movie really belongs to Ellen DeGeneres, who steals the show as Dory, Marlin’s bright blue companion. Dory has short-term memory issues, a gag which could rapidly burn itself out, but the script manages to keep finding new ways to surprise you with it. DeGeneres’s goofy, dithery stage persona is perfect for the role.
Because this is a Pixar movie, it should go without saying that the visuals are beyond reproach, but I’ll say it anyway: the visuals are beyond reproach. Their computer-animated undersea landscape sways beneath currents you can almost feel; the light plays down from above like…well, just like light shining down through water. Each bird and fish and turtle is expressive and minutely detailed—check out the way the ragged feathers fluff out on the pelicans. (Don’t miss the closing credits, and not only because they let you go back and look at the sets again.) Because this is a Pixar movie, there are dozens of brilliant little throwaway gags that go by at a hundred miles an hour. And because it is a Pixar movie, it manages to deliver all kinds of hilarity and still touch you deeply with poignant moments that hit you when you least expect them. Don’t let the kids’-movie packaging fool you; this is a movie for everybody.
And finally, I would like to applaud the creators’ apparent passion for oceanography and marine biology. Right from the beginning, the movie is full of little touches that make this clear, from asides about how clownfish survive in their anemone homes to the schoolmaster’s excellent little songs. There’s so much good science in here. (Okay, the bit where our intrepid heroes dive down into the benthic zone isn’t part of that. They’d never survive the cold or the pressure long enough to meet that fabulous anglerfish. But still: it’s such a great sequence that I don’t care.)
Paul and I need see it again. For starters, everyone was laughing so hard throughout the movie that we felt like we kept missing chunks of dialogue. Even if that weren’t the case, it’s worth seeing twice on a big screen—so I strongly recommend that you see it at least once.