Thank you for all your lovely comments. I'm taking an extended break from Ciao due to pressures from...
Thank you for all your lovely comments. I'm taking an extended break from Ciao due to pressures from work and home. Feel free to drop me from your COT if you're feeling neglected. You're all great writers and I'm gonna miss you! xxxx
Member since:14.05.2003
Reviews:54
Members who trust:25
"Then we were like whoaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"
Following Kiera13's brilliant advice of 'Find a kid! Find a kid right now!' I duly grabbed my daughter (I KNEW there was a reason I had her) and my nephew, who had come to stay, and hot-tailed it into town. Twenty-five stressed minutes, two bags of skittles, three large cokes and a promotional Finding Nemo card later, we were seated in the front row of the large cinema - so we could 'see clearly'. Yes, darling, but mummy really needs a NECK to see.
I soon forgot about my neck issues, and the smells of sickly-sweet popcorn, the excited squeals of kids riding sugar-highs, and the U-rated adverts in the delight of this gorgeously animated flick.
The main character is worry-wart Clownfish Marlin (que the obligatory joke - 'he's not very funny for a clownfish') whose beloved wife and 399 of his 400 babies were eaten by a nasty shark. Marlin and one baby survived - major cutie Nemo of the title. Marlin promises to never let anything happen to Nemo, and turns into a loving but stiffling protective father. Marlin is especially protective of Nemo because he has a "lucky fin" - ie an underdeveloped one that is rendered almost useless. How politically-correct and disabled-friendly is Disney? Perhaps Pixar's influence, methinks?
Nemo's first
day of school roles around - a chance for him to see the big wide sea, but for Marlin more like a chance to lose his only son. The kids meet at the drop-in point and we cringe at Marlin's embarassing attempts to tell a joke ("A sea-cucumber walks up to an anemone - well, not actually walks, because its the sea - well, the sea cucumber is in one place and the anemone is in another..."). The "school bus" stingray arrives, and Nemo leaves. Unfortunately, Marlin decides he's made a huge mistake, and chases after it, embarasses Nemo and makes him come home. In defiance, trying to prove to his dad that he can do things alone, and at the same time trying to impress his daredevil classmates (including an Octopus who embarrassingly 'inks' at important moments) Nemo swims up to a boat and 'touches' it. He tries to swim back down, but, (nooooooo!) is captured by a diver.
Marlin is distraught, understandably, and despite his fear of the Ocean, sets to find Nemo - who is trapped in a Dentist's fishtank waiting for 'fishkiller' niece Darla to be given him as a birthday present - with only the address on a dropped mask to help. Oh, and an adorable fish with short-term memory loss called Dory ("A game? Oooh, pick me! Pick me!)
Along the way they meet a host of characters, including a reformed fisheating sharks ("Fish are friends, not food"), a brilliantly funny hippie sea-turtle ("Later, JellyMan dude...sweeeeeeeeeet!") and an evil piranha.
As with all Disney films, there is the 'moral' element. In this, it is that Marlin doesn't believe that Nemo can survive for himself, and Nemo believes that Marlin is too scared to go out into the Ocean. Obviously, they overcome all obstacles and find out new things about themselves and each other. Awwww! But this is not just a Disney film. This is a Disney PIXAR film...and that means humour; hilarious, grown-up adult and children-based humour. Dory, voiced by the hilarious Ellen DeGeneres is probably the funniest character. She sets up the humour as soon as she enters the screen, telling Marlin to follow then five minutes later turning round and shrieking "stop following me!" Another hilarious scene is when she tells Marlin that she can speak whale.
Dory: Oooh! Whale! I can speak whale! Mmmmoooooowaaaaah! Marlin: Dory, you can't speak whale. That's upset stomach.
Later...
Marlin: Goooooodbbyyyyyyeeeeeeeee. Dory: Wow. I wish I could speak whale!
Other funny things that I picked up on and the kids didn't were Bruce the shark's entrance of 'Heeeeeere's Brucey!' In the style of Jack Nicholson in The Shining. And Darla's Psycho-esque entrance that had me giggling my head off, much to the disgust of Helen ('Mummy, this bit's not really funny, really'.)
And Crush the 150-year-old turtle has to be another favourite character. The interplay between him and his oh-so-cute son Squirt is great.
Crush: NOGGIN! (He bumps heads with Squirt) Squirt and Crush: DUDE!
The acting in Finding Nemo is superb, and along with the brilliant animation, probably makes the film. My personal favourite was Ellen DeGeneres as Dory. Her always optimistic ("no! it's half-empty!" "I'd say its half-full, actually") voice kept the film going and she has excellent comic timing. Albert Brooks as Marlin was fairly good, and I guess he didn't have the most to work with, being a paranoid, boring worrier. He just didn't stand out among the brilliance of the rest of the cast. Alexander Gould as Nemo is very cute, and I suppose he'll have a long career ahead of him, either in animation or normal flicks, because he's a biggish star in America already. Other favourites were Willem Dafoe as Gill (not a baddie! Seriously! Not a baddie!) the father-figure of Nemo's while in the tank, director Andrew Stanton as Crush, and Geoffrey Rush (not sure about this whole old-guys revival in every film, but stillllllll) as Pelican Nigel.
The animation, which I already mentioned, is out-of-this world. Everything is clearly and gorgeously shot in vibrant blues and greens. The facial features of the fish are exquisite, beautifully portrayed and you can always tell what they're thinking. At times I actually jumped, especially when the sharks came out, and I forgot that it was an animation flick. It's just a film...its an everybody film.
It sounds like it has it all...the acting, the story (will you all laugh at me if I tell you that I was nearly crying towards the end?), the animation...so why only four stars? Essensially, this is a kid's film. The humour, while much more subtle than the average Disney flick, has to appeal to its U audience, and so obviously sometimes I was groaning and berating it for being so obvious and a little slapstick. However, this was purely because I kept forgetting that it WAS a kid's film, and so I felt letdown when it conformed to that convention.
Over all, though, I'd reccommend this to anyone. If you like humour, animation boardering on real art (c'mon, Johnny Depp reckons that Sergio Leone's Westerns are as close as the cinema comes to art! Why can't I think that animation is art?!) and a way to keep the kids quiet for a few hours, then go watch. Right now, duuuuuude.
xxxxxxxxx
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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 19th, 2003
very helpful by (97%):
helpful by (3%):
![Finding Nemo [Collector's Edition]-DVD](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/106082569.jpg)
