“Funny, poignant, and thought-provoking, Finding Dory delivers a beautifully animated adventure that adds another entertaining chapter to its predecessor’s classic story” Rotten Tomatoes 95%

For the record, I’m going to assume we’ve all seen Disney/Pixar’s 2003 smash hit Finding Nemo – only THE most successful animated film of all time, winning almost every award possible in 2004, including an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. (If you’re a parent, you’ve probably seen it 100 times.)

With gratitude to Disney and barely contained excitement the chicklets and I were treated to Finding Dory last weekend. Dory is one of the funniest children’s movie characters of all time and I was stoked to see she’d got her own gig. We were amping to see it, all $200 million US dollars worth.

With simply beautiful artwork, perfectly timed jokes, believable characters and a story to engage with (ignoring one or two flimsier scenes near the end) this movie is a great watch. Its technical wizardry is amazing (check out Indie Wire’s discussion of the revolutionary water animation here) and although its over 10 years since Finding Nemo, the team has remained true to the original character designs whilst using much more complex animation techniques.

picturesque scene where stingrays flash past

great to have above water action

The filmmakers introduce another character in this second movie – Hank, a grumpy octopus with seven legs. His only wish is to find a solitary tank, he has no desire to get back out to the ocean, and he readily provides the slapstick humour by constantly camouflaging himself in hilarious ways (keep an eye on the end credits). He’s voiced by Ed O’Neill (Al Bundy from Married with Children, and more recently he played Jay Pritchett from Modern Family). I look forward to seeing more of Hank in future sequels (Finding Hank’s Missing Tentacle?)