finding nemo | Joy Reviews Movies

Honourable mentions: I saw a thing on The Spiral Site where he listed his favourite films for every year since he was born and I thought, “Hey! I love making lists and I haven’t done a list post in a while…” so here I am, making a list post! There aren’t as many years as his, since I am so young and youthful (lol), but nonetheless, here goes:

1992: Army of Darkness!
Honourable mentions: Sister Act, Reservoir Dogs, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle

1993: What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?
Honourable mentions: Falling Down, Hocus Pocus, The Secret Garden, Benny & Joon

1994: Clerks
Honourable mentions: Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption

1995: Mallrats
Honourable mentions: Se7en, Clueless

1996: The Frighteners
Honourable mentions: Scream, Fly Away Home

1997: The Fifth Element
Honourable mentions: Good Will Hunting, The Game

1998: Mulan
Honourable mentions: The Truman Show, American History X, The Faculty

1999: Fight Club
Honourable mentions: American Beauty, The Green Mile, The Iron Giant, The Blair Witch Project

2000: American Psycho
Honourable mentions: Memento, Requiem for a Dream, Battle Royale

2001: Spirited Away
Honourable mentions: Lord of the Rings – The Fellowship of the Ring, Donnie Darko, A Beautiful Mind, The Others

2002: One Hour Photo
Honourable mentions: 28 Days Later…, Red Dragon, Sweet Home Alabama

2003: School of Rock
Honourable mentions: Finding Nemo, Oldboy, Bruce Almighty

2004: The Machinist
Honourable mentions: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Shaun of the Dead

2005: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Honourable mentions: Capote, The Corpse Bride, Four Brothers, The Exorcism of Emily Rose

2006: The Illusionist
Honourable mentions: Idiocracy

2007: [REC]
Honourable mentions: Juno, Knocked Up, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, El Orfanato/The Orphanage

2008: Burn After Reading
Honourable mentions: Gran Torino, Cloverfield

2009: Drag Me to Hell
Honourable mentions: (500) Days of Summer, District 9, Zombieland

2010: Blue Valentine
Honourable mentions: Black Swan, How to Train Your Dragon, Winter’s Bone, Easy A

2011: Bridesmaids
Honourable mentions: The Help, Paranormal Activity 3, Contagion, Sucker Punch, We Need to Talk About Kevin

2012: Pitch Perfect
Honourable mentions: Django Unchained, Silver Linings Playbook, Les Miserables

2013: The Conjuring
Honourable mentions: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Captain Phillips, Don Jon

2014: The Babadook
Honourable mentions: Gone Girl, Interstellar, The Imitation Game, As Above So Below

2015: Room
Honourable mentions: The Revenant, The Hateful Eight, Green Room

2016: Deadpool
Honourable mentions: Moonlight, La La Land, The Handmaiden, Don’t Breathe, Hush

Okay, that was WAY harder than I thought it was going to be. To be fair, I also used Google and looked at a quick overview of what notable movies came out that year, so I’m entirely certain that I missed a ton of really great films! I have such a decision-making problem and I just love films so much. There aren’t many that I watch and go “that’s a bad movie.” And since I was born in ’92, I miss out on listing some of the greatest films, some of my FAVOURITE films… I really wanted to list Carrie but it’s from 1976… darn. Anyway, it was a fun little exercise in rattling off movies that I love and it gives you a sense of what films I enjoy, too! (P.S. Good thing there’s no tag limit, apparently!)

I did it! I went to the theatre at the latest possible non-3D showing, sat in a theatre full of children with my boyfriend, and I watched Finding Dory. Right now, Finding Dory has 95% on Rottentomatoes… that’s extremely fresh! Not as fresh as Finding Nemo, which is sitting at a beautiful and near-perfect 99%. Honestly, going in, I expected worse than I received!

As always, Pixar delivered the most beautiful scenery. The oceanscapes are absolutely gorgeous and I can’t imagine how much time, effort, and work went into animating it. Just an unreal amount of beauty! Anybody who has seen Finding Nemo can vouch for the fact that a sequel is basically unnecessary. Nemo was a masterpiece on its own that ended perfectly, no more explanation needed. However, I would say that this addition was not unwelcome. I was really worried that they were basically going to make a re…imagining, if you will, of Finding Nemo -Dory gets lost, Marlin & Nemo have to scour the ocean to find her, they get into crazy ocean hijinks – and at its most basic, that is the premise of the film, but it takes it just one step further to make something original!

I have to nit-pick though. I think they went too far with anthropomorphizing the sea creatures. In the first film, there were far-fetched aspects – you know, A.A. with sharks and escaping through a whale’s blowhole – but at least those are… things that happen in the ocean. You expect them to take real-life elements in the ocean – sharks, jellyfish, anglerfish, the East Australian Current – and use them to make a coherent story. THAT SAID, there is a line where you jump straight from “plausible” to “absolutely ridiculous” and I gotta say, octopus driving truck being navigated by Blue Tang and being tracked by a beluga whale over in the ocean using his echolocation, is nearing that extreme we don’t want to be hitting.

I’m certain that kids liked it. I could hear them all around me laughing and squealing with delight, however, for those of us… *ahem* adults who enjoy animated films that have an intelligent streak, you just can’t suspend your disbelief that far or for that long.

All that aside, the film is heartwarming and I teared up a bit when Dory was reunited with her parents. It was entertaining enough to keep my attention, as well as several under-10-year-olds’… it just overstepped a bound or two that I, personally, wouldn’t have crossed. It introduced many entertaining characters, such as Hank the seven-legged octopus (septopus?), Gerald the sea lion, and Becky the loon, as well as some less entertaining characters who are integral to the plot, such as Destiny the whale shark, and Bailey the Beluga whale. It is a worthy addition to the Pixar roster… I’m just not sure it’s as perfect a film as Finding Nemo!

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Finding Dory (2016)