Finding Dory
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Finding Dory

Thirteen years may have passed since Finding Nemo, but it’s barely been any time at all for the cast of Finding Dory – and for Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), the friendly blue tang with a short-term memory problem, the days have just flown by.

But when she manages to remember the parents she lost when she was still a child (well, a fish child), she sets off on a quest across the ocean to find them in “the jewel of Morro Bay, California”. Nemo (now voiced by Hayden Rolence) and his dad Marlin (Albert Brooks) have no choice but to follow, only to find she’s now inside a marine park, where she’s hanging out with a grumpy colour-changing octopus Hank (Ed O’Neill).

Lightning hasn’t quite struck twice here, though Dory turns out to be surprisingly capable as a protagonist; while many of the individual scenes are very funny or very moving (Pixar’s fondness for emotionally devastating opening scenes continues here), the story doesn’t quite have the drive of the first film, and the decision to (slightly) sideline Nemo and Marlin feels like a waste. But it’s a sequel, and one that delivers more of the same while just being different enough to work: judged by most standards, this is just hunky-dory (sorry).

Reviewed by Anthony Morris