Finding Nemo

Filed Under: Film, Reviews | Article Tags : DVD review

 

By: The Dweeb

 

December 2003

DVD Features Video: Widescreen 1.78:1 Fullscreen 1.33:1 Audio:English: Dolby Digital-EX 5.1 Spanish: Dolby Digital-EX 5.1; FRENCH: Dolby Digital-EX 5.1 Disc One: Plunge into the Filmmakers’ World: Turn Your TV into A Virtual Aquarium with Amazing Animated Scenes from the Movie Recording and Scenes Deleted Including Commentary Visual Filmmakers Making Nemo: A Special Documentary Featuring Footage on the Creation of the Film Review the Art of Nemo. Narrated by the Artists Themselves And Much More! Disc 2: A Voyage of Family Fun: Exploring the Reef with Jean-Michael Cousteau and All Your Nemo Friends Turn Your TV Into a Virtual Aquarium Including Never-Before-Seen Animation Discover the Classic Pixar Animation Studios Short Film Knick Knack The Incredibles – A Pixar Animation Studios Sneak Peek Play “Fisharades” With Your Favorite School of Fish Learning Fun with Mr. Ray’s Encyclopedia Pixar Animation Studios Takes Future Animators on a Behind the Scenes Tour Storytime for the Young  Theatrical release:5/30/2003 DVD released on 11/4/2004 by Disney/ Buena Vista Running time of 100 minutes Starring: Albert Brooks, Ellen Degeneres Director: Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich Plot: When Nemo, a young clownfish, is unexpectedly carried far from his home, his overprotective father, Marlin (Albert Brooks), and Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), a friendly but forgetful regal blue tang fish, embark on an epic journey that leads to encounters with vegetarian sharks, surfer dude turtles, hypnotic jellyfish and hungry seagulls!

 

Once again, Pixar delivers another winner in Finding Nemo. They took such a simple basic story and turned this into one great film. I am still waiting for the day when Pixar comes out with something average, hopefully never. Disney has another box office smash on their hands, and not to mention a run on pet stores for clown fish. The kids just love this movie, I can see why, I do too. There’s plenty of action, great characters and its really funny and cute. Gotta love those seagulls. “Mine? Mine?”

Yeah, cute. Is that what it is that those other childrens movies don’t have? A lot of times they try to be cute, but they just don’t have that special charm. Maybe they use some kind of magic Pixar dust. Don’t know what it is but I can’t complain. It lies somewhere with the voice actors and animators I think. They go to great lengths to make each fish character have just a little feature of the voice actor behind it. You know for sure that Willem Dafoe voicing Gill or Brad Garrett as Bloat the puffer fish. They look a lot like them.

Of course, the most amazing thing about Finding Nemo is the animation. We have come a long way since Toy Story haven’t we? The water animation is just amazing , and it looks so realistic. The shots of Sydney harbor almost look like a photograph, I was really blown away by that. The complex animal motions is done very realistically. Those pixel jockeys really did their homework, I commend them for it.

As usual Disney puts this film in a great DVD package. It comes with 2 discs, with both film formats if you prefer widescreen or full. Why they even bother with that I don’t know, it should be widescreen all the way! The film is beautifully transferred and the THX sound is really well mixed. There are a lot of extras on each disc. I think they were trying to go for a more educational angle this time. There is a documentary about coral reefs and Mr Ray’s encyclopedia, which has all kinds of info about each species we saw in the film. There is also a goofy behind the scenes look, more like a Wiggles episode than a tour. There are games and this ’screen saver’ feature that if you are bored you can make the TV or computer look like the ocean floor. Not sure what the point of that was, maybe because it looks nice. There are many things to see in this package, almost too much.

Such a great movie like this should be on everyone’s shelf.

Reviewer’s Opinion: BUY IT!!