Finding Nemo

Finally!!!!!! I have hit pay dirt. The drought is over. I have found a movie that I really love. I went to see this May 30th and went back with reinforcements to see it on May 31st. I want the whole world to know just how cool this movie is. How is the weather on Mount Everest this time of year? I'd like to shout it from that mountain top.

If you see only one movie this year, don't make it Matrix or X-Men or T3. If you have already seen multiple movies this year then forget what I just said. If you haven't seen any movies then make that first one Finding Nemo. This movie is funny, happy, cute, and any other positive adjective I can give it. I loved it!! And the best part is that you will, too.

Marlin(Albert Brooks, Defending Your Life, Dr. Doolittle) and his fish-wife, Coral(Elizabeth Perkins, Cats and Dogs, If These Walls Could Talk II) have just settled in their new home awaiting the arrival of their first 400 children. The area is beautiful. It is a very colorful coral reef that has lots of nice neighbors around. Good schools and good surroundings. As the couple become excited about naming their brood and how life will be, an ominous shadow moves in. Both of them stop dead in their swimming. Not far away is a very large barracuda. He is zeroing in on a very tasty meal of two clown fish and their babies. Marlin yells to his wife to come back in the sea anemone, but she chooses to protect her young that are just below in a small cave. After being slapped around and knocked unconscious, it is dark when Marlin awakes. He swims out to find that his wife and brood are all gone. In his sadness, he spies one little egg that still survives. He decides to choose the name for the youngster that his wife wanted, Nemo.

Later on Nemo(Alexander Gould, They) is ready to go to school, but Marlin is very apprehensive. He would rather his young boy wait another year or two or three or four, but the boy is more than anxious for his first day of school. The class is huge and little Nemo has no problem making friends with sea horses, octapi, and other types of fish kids. Their teacher is a big mantaray named Mr. Ray(couldn't find a voice credit on him. kinda sounded like Danny Devito). He has all the kids climb on his back and he takes them a tour of the ocean.

When Marlin finds out that part of the tour includes a place called "The Drop Off" he immediatley panics and tries to find his Nemo. As he arrives at the drop off two other kids have already dared Nemo to go touch what they call a butt. It's really a boat. As Nemo is coming back a diver snatches him up and takes him to the "butt." This begins an adventure that takes Marlin through lots of challenges and perils as he tries to find out where his son was taken.

Along the way he meets an absent-minded girl fish named Dory(Ellen DeGeneres). She suffers from short term memory loss. She can't even remember what she did two seconds ago. She is a delightful blue fish that gets pretty attached to Marlin. Through their relationship she learns to remember things better.

Nemo is taken by this dentist(Bill Hunter,Kangaroo Jack) from Sydney, Australia to be placed in a fish tank in his office. He makes friends with the other fish in the tank and together they hatch plot after plot to get out of the tank and get back to the open sea. Nemo is about to be a gift to the dentist's daughter, Dora. They want to help Nemo escape this fate and get themselves out as an added bonus. There is Gil(Willem Defoe) that is the leader of the tank. At times he sounded like Mel Brooks. I'd like to know the story behind that one. There is Bubbles(Stephen Root, Office Space, Ghost). He is addicted to bubbles and keeps running over to the treasure chest to suck in the bubbles it lets out. There is Peach(Allison Janney, The Hours, American Beauty) the star fish that always keeps the others informed. There was Bloat(Brad Garrett,Country Bears, Stuart Little II) the puffer fish that always puffed up when he got scared or excited. There was Deb/Flo(Vicki Lewis,Pushing Tin, Godzilla 1998) was the purple angel fish She was really Deb and her reflection was Flo. Any time the tank got dirty she would ask everyone, "Have you seen Flo?" There was also Jaques the shrimp(Joe Ranft,Mike's New Car, Toy Story) that cleaned everything and hid in the diving helmet. Gurgle(Austin Pendleton, My Cousin Vinny, The Muppet Movie) was a little purple fish with buggy eyes.

You will laugh along the journey as you learn the meaning of hump back whale talk. You will meet three sharks(Bruce--Barry Humphries, Chum--Bruce Spence, and Anchor--Eric Bana) that have formed F.A. or Fish Annonymous. They vow never to eat fish again and proclaim that "Fish are our friends. Not our food." (They have a chant that reminds me of the old T.O.P.S. weight loss club. If you live somewhere where one of these dinosaur clubs still exist then you know what I mean. If you don't then I will tell you that TOPS stands for Take Off Pounds Sensibly.) In the deepest ocean there is this very toothy fish with a light on it's head. It tries to eat the pair, but they outwit it and it winds up with a diving mask on and it's light is stuck behind it. Marlin and Dory also go through a jelly fish bunch and meet up with some surfer dude turtles.

This movie doesn't lack for laughs and fun. You will love it so much that you will want to tell the world about it. It's not just for the kiddies. It's for the kid in the adults, too. Pixar and Disney have created another gold mine to not only entertain, but to please millions of people in millions of ways. Make sure to catch this film over and over. You will love it as much as its predecessors, Monsters, Inc. and the Toy Story pair.