Finding Nemo
Here's the setup to me seeing this movie. I got home from Caly last nite at 1:30AM to find out I was locked out. Full story here. Had to crash on a friends couch when all I wanted in the world was just to be home. When I woke up I still couldn't get into my place so I wandered out in the rain without an umbrella to catch at 2:30 of this flick. When I got there I was drenched so I picked up a hot chocolate. I sat down, sipped my cocoa and listened to the kidchatter all around while waiting for the movie to start. One little girl behind me said something about 'Elmo...' The dad said, 'Not Elmo, sweetie. Nemo.' The little girl said, 'No Elmo?...' (all disappointed in the cutest kid voice.) 'Not Elmo, sweetie. Nemo. Neeemo.' the Dad said..
Cute. So anyway turned out to be the best movie I've seen this year and one of the best animated flicks I've ever seen. This movie took off with a bit of a shockooh setup and kept a healthy pace throughout the whole movie. I always dig the Pixar stuff before but I usually have issues when they break into song. I kind of think 'That's for the kids...' and wait for the song to end slightly annoyed that my reality was broken by the singing. Something about the musical reminds me I'm watching a movie for kids. This movie smartly didn't break into song. Phew.. For me at least.
Albert Brooks plays the dad and he did a good job in his nebbishy way but the real star of this flick was Ellen DeGeneres. For a 'side-ish' role she not only kept this movie flowing but her fish character kept kicking it up a notch. She got the biggest laughs and biggest emotional tugs. And the voice matched the fish to a tee. The rest of em seagulls, pelicans, sharks, stoner turtles, tank fish. All good. And weird. And I happily wasn't distracted by the 'oh that's so and so's voice' (like me listening to Donkey in shrek and always hearing eddie murphy.) These voices were the characters for me. Some of em I recognized but couldn't place em. But I didn't even try. I didn't care who they were in real life.
The big hook to this flick is it's funny. I laughed out loud alot. Maybe I was delirious from the lockout disaster/jet lag/rain soaking. But I get the feeling it was the real deal. I laughed in the kid sense, the physical sense, the adult sense, the big picture sense and at the lil snack mumbley lines. It was smart. They didn't wimp out on scary stuff too neither. I was submerged.
Blah blah... The message of this flick was pretty straightforward stuff. Take chances in life. Overcome obstacles. Typical schmickal. But there was something about the life teeming off the screen that put it over the top. It giggled up the kid in me. Actually I think I liked it alot more than the kids in the theater. They seemed to dig it but I'm not sure if they latched onto it. But I was clam happy the whole time.
Three Good Things About This Movie
- Visually it was pretty frickin sick. Light and water and movement and how
the hell do they do all that stuff with the detaily stuff and stuff.
- The acting was on. I really got a kick out of Ellen (who usually gets on my
nerves). She won me over big time.
- The gearshifting of the film was great. It didn't linger on scenes too long.
It would jump back and forth splashing here and there and bring in new characters to keep
things goodly spicy and avoided the bore.
Three Bad Things About This Movie
- A big moment toward the end that should have packed an emotional
whop.. was sort of whatevery.
- Albert Brooks fish let us down one to many times before he came around.
- Nemo as a character was slightly weak. He was who he was but I didn't care as
much as I felt I shudda.
So that's that with that. I liked the lessons in there built in for kids. Respect living creatures. Value friendship. Hope. Family. Overcome challenges. Don't be a schmuck. All of that stuff. Whatever with that. I wandered in feeling pretty sucky and wandered out into the rain feeling smiley and alive. And psyched about life.
(I even returned the Hello Kitty wallet I swiped off some kid by the water fountain. It just seemed... I don't know... wrong? Plus it only had like $3 in it...)
jes kiddin