Finding Nemo (2003)

Toy story i think will always remain my favourite Pixar film. With Cars & A Bugs Life (Antz Rules!!) being my least favourite. However due to recently watching Ratatouille i decided to rewatch the Pixar movie i had seen least recently, Finding Nemo.

Still buzzing of the recent Ratatouille, i was excited to rewatch Nemo and i have to say, what a film !

I had almost forgot how good this was. It has for me one of the key selling points of most pixar movies (bugs life & Cars aside) thats a real emotional core. The narrative of Marlin trying to find his son, combined with the script, animation and voice acting really manages to pull you in and believe that these fish are capable of these emotions. Thats what i love when pixar gets it right, it takes a very human emotion and attributes it to an animal, Toy or car (well not so muh car) and makes you care. In many ways actually out of the Pixar creations, this feels most like a classic disney narrative. Where as i felt Cars was very much a Kids movie, i feel Nemo is a family movie. By this i mean there is enough for both kids and adults to get something out of it. Theres some lessons to be learnt about parenthood and growing up, and its these qaulities that harp back to the classic ideologies of old Disney Animations. It starts with the death of what seemingly was going to become a main character, nemo's mother. It's something that anyone can relate to the fear or realisation of losing a parent or someone close to you.

The relationship between Marlin and his son Nemo is fantastic and always feels real. This film also maybe pixar's most consistantly funny, with Dory, the re-formed sharks and sufer dude turtles really adding to the laughs. Albert Brooks provides some of the best voice acting in a pixar movie and you really hear Marlin's worry and fear throughout all of his performance.

The film of course looks brilliant. I saw once on a documentary that they actually had the capabilities to make it look picture perfect, seriously no difference at all to real life and they actually opted for the option of making it slightly brighter and meagical, which i felt was a good choice. Again another factor that goes back to classic disney.

I have to mention my favourite scene , where Marlin is swimming after the boat that took Nemo, and we see him endlessly swimming frantically, with the fear on his face, without any real words, in the animation we know just what is going on, and it is a fantastic bit of work

All in all, Finding Nemo is amazing. Everything about it is epic, you really feel that with this pixar has come full circle. In many ways they have combined everything that makes a disney/pixar film work :

* Animals
* Real emotional narrative
* Human emotions within creatures
* Humans causing trouble for the animals
* consistantly funny
* Visuals

I would also like to mention the ending, which has a very hearfelt feel to it. With Nemo pixar has crafted something that should be remembered as a classic.