I wasn't expecting much - anything which gets as much hype as 'Finding Nemo' is bound to be rubbish - right? - WRONG!
I must admit my credentials at this stage, as an adult having been forced to watch every Disney, Don Bluth and MGM animated film released in the past twelve years,
I reckon I've seen most of it all before - the relentless build up on TV and radio, the twenty minutes of unbearable adverts in the cinema before the feature, followed by the film itself, *then* there's the merchandising, the release of the video, the somewhat lame sequel, and low-budget spin-off TV series - that's just the way the industry works.
And I'm sorry to say, there's every sign of this being the case once more.
To be fair, however, the film was rather good, if just a bit predictable.
Imagine Don Bluth's 1988 film 'An American Tail' - in which Fievel, a small Russian mouse becomes separated from it's parents, and the adventures of both the hero, and his parents become reunited in the 'promised land'
of the good-ol' U-S of A, except this time, the story is transported twelve thousand miles to the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, and of course, most of the action takes place underwater.
Pixar used a similar story line in the technically groundbreaking 1995 feature 'Toy Story' - and the somewhat better 1999 sequel (if rather unimaginatively named) 'Toy Story 2'.
It was, therefore, with a certain degree of resignation that I took the wife and kids to 'Finding Nemo', with the full expectation of being distracted for an hour and a half, rather than entertained.
Nobody could have been more surprised than I to find it wasn't as dreadful little film as I had feared, and has been directed with a lightness of touch which hitherto has been absent from most recent offerings.
The story starts off when Marlin, a clown fish, is setting up home with his partner on the Great Barrier Reef, when their dreams of a quiet life raising a brood of eggs into full fishy adulthood are dashed by the actions of a predator - Marlin finds himself as a single parent with a disabled child (Nemo) who gets himself separated from the reef community and taken by an underwater diver to a dentist's surgery in Sidney.
Marlin decides to track down and free his captured son, and along the way, makes friends with a blue tang fish called Dory, who, in spite of short term memory problems, displays some remarkable talents.
Nemo, meanwhile, makes new friends in his new home, undergoes a rite of passage, but his new domesticity is set to be shattered when it is discovered that he is to be given to the Dentist's niece, who has already killed previous piscine presents.
Numerous dangers and obstacles are encountered by both father and son, and - predictably, just as things can't seem to get any worse, they invariably do.
As this is a kid's film, it probably doesn't come as any particular surprise to find out that everything turns out right in the end, although of course, it's the journey that counts, not simply arriving there.
The computer animation, characterisation, effects and sound are everything we have come to expect from Pixar, and whilst there are occasions where the plot verges on excessive sentimentality, the directors manage to just pull back from the brink of morkishness, unfortunately not a charge which can be levelled at Don Bluth!
I was especially pleased by one scene in which Barry Humphries (of Dame Edna and Les Patterson fame) plays a cameo role as a vegetarian shark in.
There is plenty of action to keep the story moving at a swift pace, unlike recent films such as 'Ice Age' there is sufficient variety in the situations to stop you sighing 'here we go again' -
My five year old only got fidgety in the last ten minutes of the film, where even she had guessed it would all end happily ever after.
Adult jokes are somewhat few and far between, the one that made me chuckle the most was a parody of Kubrick's 'Shining' where a shark smashes it's way through the bulkhead of an abandoned submarine and pokes his face through - all that's missing is the line 'Heeeeeere's Johnny!'
The only thing that really got me was the suspicion that many of the scenes were designed specifically to be levels within the inevitable video game - dodge the jellyfish, ride the current, chase the bubbles, but don't get nipped by the crabs - you get the idea.
If I were to suggest one thing which the film lacked, it would be the absence of a nemesis (all powerful baddy) - most of the incidents are portrayed as haphazard and unforeseen challenges, rather than the doings of some altogether darker force - saying that, it's probably what saved the film.
Will it do well? - was Mickey ever a mouse! Will there be a sequel? - not unless the sun rises tomorrow! - will we get sick of the relentless marketing? - what do you think?
OK so I ought to lighten up, I wish for once, just once, that we could be offered the experience at just face value, and not have it rammed down our throats.
But then again, I'm a grumpy old man.
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A delightful undersea world unfolds in Pixar's animated adventureFinding Nemo. When his ... more
son Nemo is captured by a scuba diver, a nervous clownfish named Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks) sets off into the vast--and astonishingly detailed--ocean to find ...
Postage & Packaging: £1.21 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
A delightful undersea world unfolds in Pixar's animated adventureFinding Nemo. When his ... more
son Nemo is captured by a scuba diver, a nervous clownfish named Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks) sets off into the vast--and astonishingly detailed--ocean to find ...
Postage & Packaging: free Super Saver Delivery Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours...
Nemo an adventurous young clownfish is unexpectedly taken to a dentist's office ... more
aquarium. It's up to Marlin (Albert Brooks) his worrisome father and Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) a friendly but forgetful regal blue tang fish to make the epic journey to ...
Postage & Packaging: £0.00 Availability: 3-5 working days
![Finding Nemo (2 Disc Collector's Edition) [2003] [DVD]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78525038.jpg "Finding Nemo (2 Disc Collector's Edition) [2003] [DVD]")
Oct 12th, 2003
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