Saturday, June 14, 2003

Finding Nemo was fantastic - and a great way to usher in Father's Day. If you haven't already guessed, it's a movie about an overprotective father, Marlin, wishing to shield his son, Nemo, from all that is bad and evil in the world after Marlin's wife and 399 kids are eaten by a barracuda. And incidentally, father and son both happen to be clown fish.

It's a very funny movie with great animation; the oceanic motion was spot-on without being given over-the-top treatment i.e. there weren't bubbles at every turn to remind us that they were underwater. Despite the fact that this is essentially a movie about fish, their characters are realistic and have depth. The relationship between father and son is believable; Marlin, as stated earlier, is overprotective, while Nemo chafes under such treatment. Dory, played by Ellen DeGeneres, is hilarious as the dory who suffers from short-term memory loss.

There were so many scenes I was laughing at: Marlin and Dory's meeting with the sharks, their encounter with the turtles (aside: I love Crush and his surfer-dude accent - duuuuude!) and the other fishes in the fish tank. The single-mindedness of the seagulls (apparently modelled on the penguins in Wallace and Gromit - I knew they looked familiar!) was really cute too; I don't think I'll be able to look at a seagull in the same way again! There weren't just funny scenes in the movie though; there were emotional ones too. The scene where Marlin pick ups the one remaining egg with his fins and says "Don't worry, daddy's here. I promise that I will never let anything happen to you," made tears well up in my eyes.

This was the first animated movie I've watched in the cinema in a while, and I'm glad that I wasn't disappointed. I've always loved Disney and this time is no different.

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