Pixar Month - Finding Nemo (2003)

         Hey guys, Chuck here. As we wind closer to the end of Pixar Month, here we come to a movie that, while I acknowledge it's good, it doesn't rank among my favorites from Pixar, and that would be the 2003 film Finding Nemo. 

         The story focuses on a clownfish named Marlin, who loses his wife Coral, along with most of the eggs with their unborn children, in a barracuda attack. A single egg survives, and Marlin protects it and names the child inside of it Nemo. Years later, and Nemo is excited for his first day of school, and Marlin has become more overprotective over Nemo, even going so far as to following the class, taught by a manta ray named Mr. Ray, to a place called the "drop-off," where Nemo is taken by a scuba diver, and Marlin goes on a journey to rescue Nemo. Along the way, Marlin meets a regal blue tang named Dory. Dory suffers from short term memory loss, but is able to memorize the words on a diving mask worn by the scuba diver that took Nemo. On their journey, Marlin and Dory meet a trio of sharks with a philosophy of "Fish are friends, not food," run afoul of a school of jellyfish, and hitch a ride in the East Australian Current with a group of sea turtles, befriending a 150-year-old turtle named Crush, and his son Squirt. 

         Meanwhile, Nemo finds himself in an aquarium in a Dentist's office in Sydney, Australia, where he is meant to be a present for the dentist's niece Darla, who is known for shaking up the bags with fish inside, killing the fish in the process. So Nemo, along with the group of fish living in the aquarium, makes a plan to escape before Darla arrives. Among the fish in the aquarium are a pufferfish named Bloat, a starfish named Peach, and a moorish idol fish named Gill. Gill essentially leads the aquarium gang, and comes up with the plan to break the filter with a rock, forcing the dentist to clean the aquarium by hand, and placing the aquarium gang in bags, letting them roll out to freedom in the ocean. However, things don't quite go according to plan, as the dentist gets a newer, more advanced filter, and Darla arrives for a check-up, as well as Nemo.

      With help from the aquarium gang, and a pelican named Nigel, Marlin and Dory reach the dentist's office, Nemo escapes, and father and son are reunited. Marlin lightens up a bit, Nemo returns to school, along with a new classmate, Squirt, and Dory is now living in the reef that Marlin and Nemo live on. 

       Okay, so Finding Nemo is among Pixar's more beloved films, and it's not hard to see why. A journey of a father trying to save his son is cool, the supporting players are neat, and the undersea setting is unique. The voice cast, which includes the likes of Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Willem Dafoe, Geoffrey Rush, Brad Garrett, and so forth, are all terrific. I enjoyed watching the film when it first came out back in the early 2000's. However, the reason I like it a lot less than everyone else is because people I went to school with, whether it was in fifth grade or during middle school, wouldn't shut up about it. Everyone in school just kept talking about it day in and day out, and it's like "For crying out loud, shut the hell up about Finding Nemo, I really don't care!" So, it's not that I don't like the movie itself, I just hate how much millennials have overhyped this one movie to the point that I don't want to even talk about the movie. However, regardless of how much I hate that millennials overhyped this one movie, I will admit that it is a classic for Pixar, which is why I'm giving Finding Nemo a rating of 4.75/5. 

       Now, I myself am guilty of having overhyped a single Pixar movie, but we'll get to that next time on Pixar Month, as we take a look at my all-time favorite Pixar film since the original Toy Story: Pixar's The Incredibles.