"Finding Dory" review

Is it the organic extension a la Toy Story, the soulless cash grab of Cars, or something in between? 

One year following Marlin’s adventure across the sea to find his son, Nemo, his newfound friend Dory, afflicted with an inability to maintain short term memory, finds herself managing to remember the parents that she had lost when she was young but unable to figure out what separated them.

She and her new family undertake a journey to find her parents, exploring territory both familiar and new in a sequel that’s not quite as inspired as the “Toy Story” sequels but is at least an improvement over the lower end of Pixar productions that the studio has sadly come to release of the last few years.

Similarly to what made “Finding Nemo” such a lauded classic at the time of its release, “Finding Dory” focuses on the perceptions of disability and how those with it function in society. However, where “Nemo” focused on living and overcoming such matters as a child and allowing them the space to overcome their challenges in their own way, “Dory” tackles the territory of adults with disabilities.

The laughably charming quirk that once characterized Dory in the previous film is deconstructed into a lifelong ailment that she has somehow managed to stumble through life with before befriending Marlin, who diligently watches over her not unlike a nursing home aid caring for a charge with Alzheimer’s.

Along the way, numerous animals are highlighted overcoming their own disabilities and even interacting with functional animals in illustration of the film’s obvious intent of nailing home the message that for the world to keep spinning, clearly it takes all sorts.

“Finding Dory’s” messages of empowerment for the disabled are respectable and well meaning. I can’t help but wonder if it’s also calculatedly timed, similarly to the “Toy Story” franchises themes of grappling with the coming of age and its different aspects of seizing the day, embracing change, letting go, and moving on.

At the time that “Finding Nemo” was  originally released, I was a 12 year old loner struggling with Attention Deficit Disorder and the suffocating effect that it had on my drive to do things requiring more intensive focus and the inability to find understanding in anybody around me but a select few friends.

The metaphor of the movie was far from lost on me and I can’t begin to imagine how it must have resonated with any of my fellow millennials that were younger and impaired by more problematic conditions, mental, physical or otherwise.

Thirteen years later, we have a movie deconstructing how adults cope with said conditions at a time in which many kids that have seen the first one must find a way to carve their mark in the adult world after a few years of life experience.

Coincidence? Who knows, but the parallels can be downright eerie.

Two friends that Dory meets along the way are a near sighted whale shark and a beluga whale unable to echolocate, that compensate for each other’s weaknesses to function as an effective team.

Hell, the last powerful moment of the movie comes at the start of the third act in which Dory, confronted with the reality that the parents that she risked her, Marlin, and Nemo’s life to discover that her parents may be permanently out of reach, becomes overwhelmed with grief to the point of exacerbating her condition to a point worse than it ever had been.

Had Pixar not released “Inside Out” last year, “Finding Dory” may very well have been the boldest film they’ve released in quite some time, yet all of the same loveable charm is there to keep it the crowd pleaser that it is expected to be; the animation and character designs are  simply gorgeous and the voice cast, including reprisals from the first film and new members, all bring their A-games, portraying characters above all else and not falling into the trap of merely reading lines in a distractingly recognizable voice that plagues many animated films these days.

If only that boldness and polish translated into quality consistency around the board.

Although the film is most definitely a better execution of a pointless sequel than I could have possibly imagined, the sad truth is that it does ultimately exists as a conceptually pointless sequel, with what inspiration it does have not quite being enough to carry it into greatness.

Despite envisioning a potentially scary set up for its tale, the edges of this film are notably rounder and softer than almost any Pixar flick before it.

The sense of danger, though never quite high to begin with, dulls out by the halfway mark of the movie which unfortunately betrays the sense of urgency that the story tries desperately to push.

This tonal whiplashing becomes a building problem in progressing the characters from point to point that devolves into a climax so exaggerated and removed from the reality of the movie’s set up that I almost want to ask what screenplay the writers thought they were working on at that point.

Such problems wouldn’t have been inherently debilitating were it not for the fact that whatever the film had to say about overcoming disability seems to be tossed clean out the window with 30% of the movie left to fill. The mechanics of it make almost no sense even in the context of whatever fantasy the film seems to think it takes place in and had Dory not spent most of this film trying to cleverly overcome her disability and the entirety of the last movie inhibited by it, you never would have known she suffered from memory loss for the final 20 to 25 minutes or so of this one.

These flaws don’t make “Finding Dory” bad by any means.

The final product is an enjoyable summer treat that the kids will get a kick out of and adults may find fairly engaging as well. It’s just frustrating to see everything great about Pixar along with all that had gone so awkwardly wrong with them in recent history lumped into one uneven final product that I sat through wanting almost hopelessly to love but walked out only liking.

7 Chants of Just Keep Swimming out of 10