Rating: 
Summary: YEAH!
Review: This movie is so easy to love. The colors and the fluidity of the ocean, the fish, the people, and the scenes in Australia were absolutely wonderful. It felt like you were looking at reality rather than a cartoon. I cannot even call it a cartoon because every detail was accurate. The light and dark shadows were accurate with the real coloring of the ocean. The perspective of the diver, big fish, little fish, coral, ocean, the dentist, and the boats were perfect! The voice of Albert Brooks was definitely the key to making Marlin (Nemo's Dad) the nervous and serious fish. Marlin sounds like such a negative thinking fish. This is right in line with Albert Brook's other movies. Ellen Degeneres adds a style and humor into the fish of Dory. What is not to love about that playful fish with a short term memory loss! I laughed every single time she said something. The fish could not be depicted with any other voices. Her ability to read and speak whale were hysterical. Nemo sounds like any other kid always testing and doing the opposite of what a parent says. His innocense helps to make the story flow. If any adult wants to enjoy what is supposed to be a kid's movie, this is the one! I do not think it was created to be for kids. Otherwise, the plot would have been simpler or less realistic. While there are some touchy scenes that I will not say to avoid spoiling the movie for others. You will truly love this movie! I wish the movie went on forever. I know this is going to be watched every minute of the day. I just hope the DVD player does not wear out! HAHA!
Rating: 
Summary: Gorgeous Animation; Worthless Content
Review: The animation in this movie certainly is gorgeous--you'd have to be blind to not appreciate it--particularly the backgrounds. As in much animation of this sort, the landscapes (or in this case seascapes) are fantastic; the way the light dapples and shifts over the objects is quite wonderful. Also common to this type of animation is the strange rubbery or plastic-like appearance to the characters; they are lacking a certain amount of surface articulation that would make them appear more realistic. Content. Oh dear. Aside from being hetero-normative (all the little fish are in male-female family units cranking-out babies) and sexist (Dory the dumb-blue, or is that dumb-blonde, female), it's just a painfully trite story. (I like Albert Brooks, but he just whines a little too much in this for me to take; the sad-sack fish business gets tiresome very quickly. Also--Great Barrier Reef...Australia...why do only some of the characters have Australian accents?) So, the other big downsides to the content, for other than the most infantile viewer, are that it is unbelieveably formulaic; this reads like dozens of other bad kiddy flicks, just set underwater. The heavy-handed morality leaves me feeling beat over the head; I haven't learned anything from watching this, and no one else will either. Again, there is no real story in this movie--it's as if the Pixar people said "we can do this underwater thing--just tack any story onto it." And when you get down to it, there is no character development at all. Marlin's search for Nemo, and its concommitant chase scenes (yawn), is terribly predictable, and smacks of "future theme park ride" plotting. Nemo's character is obviously "future stuffed animal" and "future action figure" marketing. This film couldn't be more consumerist in its development; I find it offensive to watch something that is so blatantly geared towards either "The Sequel" or "Xmas Buying Season." So what do we learn by the end of the movie? Marlin is longer depressed, but equally unbearable, he's manic! (does he suffer from BiPolar Disorder?), and he's learned to let-go a bit. Nemo, perhaps, has a new-found respect for his father; and has learned not to go swimming off into the deep dark sea. Is this the final moral of this film? Don't leave home; don't try new things; don't take risks... It's a sad society that supports such ideas for its youth; growth comes from risk, from developmental traumas, and from exploring what is new. I can't recommend this movie for anything other than the visual--in terms of content, there is definitely nothing new here.
Rating: 
Summary: This tale isn't all wet
Review: "Finding Nemo" is an enjoyable film to watch. With characters like "Bruce" and "Dory," this story is sure to hold the attention of any young child. My two and one-half year old loves it, and not a day goes by when she wants to watch the "fish" show.
Like other Pixar movies, this story features great animation, although I noticed a couple of frames in the DVD looked rather "digitized" compared to others. The story isn't too violent, is geared towards younger audiences and has a few laughs for the adults.
I didn't enjoy this movie as much as "Toy Story" or "Monsters, Inc.," but it is worth a look for the older crowd. I did laugh at a lot of the silly humor in this flick, but overall this movie seems to be geared toward the 2-8 year range more than any other Pixar movie.
I did enjoy the DVD extra "Knick Knack." Other features included virtual aquariums and games for the younger lot. In closing, get this movie for the young ones. Its great for them, but it's only okay for the older kids.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful story of family, may be too scary for little ones
Review: What a fun story and a great depiction of "fatherhood" in a society where the role of "Dad" is too easily dismissed. The graphics are really amazing, and the voices of Albert Brooks and Ellen Degenares are a perfect match for the characters they play. The producers did a really incredible job in putting together a story that is engaging, fun and moving. The other characters are great, including my personal favorite the sea turtle (a dead ringer for Spicoli in Fast Times), the other fish in the tank with Nemo, and the sea gulls with their "mine, mine, mine, mine" calls. Too funny. A great film for the whole family, although little ones may find some of the scenes a bit too intense. My two year old was scared in a couple of scenes. Overall though, a home run for Disney on this one!!
Rating:
Summary: Great movie, but beware (DVD technical issues).....
Review: This is solely in reference to the actual DVD release, and more specifically, to a certain technical issue. I won't go into the actual movie, as I generally agree with all the great things said about this wonderful piece of entertainment. My bone to pick is with something that has come up on numerous DVD's... On some DVD players, you may notice some instances when particular parts of the image, mainly the bright red Marlin character, looks a bit jagged or 'blippy'. We're talking about a blink of an eye here or there (one frame - 1/30th of a second, actually, but in several places in the film). Most noticeably, the scene with the sea turtles when the young turtles pile up on Marlin. If you go frame-by-frame, you'll notice some pixelization here and there. I tried three different Nemo DVD's on my new Pioneer DV-563AS player, in both progressive-scan and standard, through both component and s-video output, and the anomalies were still there. Strangely, I did not see this on an older Sony unit that I have. Additionally, there seems to be a surprising amount of grain in the picture for a digital-to-digital transfer. I can only determine this to be less than optimal DVD encoding as performed by the factory. I think a good benchmark for DVD picture quality (especially with a progressive-scan to HDTV set-up like mine) is Pixar's Toy Story 2, especially the opening sequence. This is an overall pristine DVD with the utmost clarity and picture integrity. I've also heard of some problems with Monsters Inc., but watched that DVD again very closely and noticed no such issues as with Nemo. So.... there's a good chance that many viewers (especially those with standard TV set-ups) will not notice this. And perhaps the Pioneer player is the only one that will show this (as the Sony did not, although my Sony player is 5 years old). But since the other DVD's mentioned play cleanly, and since I haven't noticed any such thing's with any other of my many DVD's, I'm behooved to lay blame on the DVD encoding. I kinda' hope it's just my player, as I'd like to believe that DVD encoding quality is on the way up. But in reading through many DVD-rating sites, this kind of DVD encoding problem is more common than it should be.....especially on such a movie that should take advantage of newer home entertainment technology.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best of the year. As always, Pixar delights...
Review: Pixar Animation Studios has a very good knack for making thoughtful, intelligent and humorous family films (note that I didn't say kid films). "Toy Story" 1 & 2 and "Monsters, Inc." are some of my favorite family films; "Finding Nemo" isn't one of my favorites, but it isn't disappointing like "A Bug's Life," and it is thoughtful, intelligent, humorous and incredibly watchable, just like the other Pixar films. As always, Pixar takes a world of something and completely builds their story around it. In "Toy Story" they gave life to toys and created the world through their eyes. In "Monsters, Inc.," they showed us the monster world. In my review on "A Bug's Life," I said that the reason the film didn't work very much is because it was about bugs, and not about something mystical like toys or monsters that bring back childhood memories. Well, I guess I was sorta wrong, because "Finding Nemo" is all about fish, nothing too mystical about fish, and I still loved it. This tale takes place underwater with the fish Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks), whose spouse and baby fish eggs get eaten by a vicious shark in the beginning. All but one egg which Marlin names Nemo. Years later Nemo (voiced by Alexander Gould, Elliot's son?) is a bit older, and heading off to fish school for the first time. But haunted by the fact that his spouse and offspring were all killed years ago, Marlin is extremely over-protective of his one remaining family member. Nemo, sick of being treated like a baby, proves how brave he is by swimming near a fishing boat, only to be captured by a scuba-diving dentist. And so Marlin heads off to find Nemo, with the help of his newfound companion Dory (voice of Ellen DeGeneres), who has short-term memory loss and forgets things sooner than she can carry whatever she is doing out. (Like when she is showing Marlin the way towards a fishing boat and suddenly forgets why Marlin is following her.) Pixar doesn't let down the audience on this film. There are a few things that one can always expect from Pixar films: They can expect something (such as toys) to be given their own world. They can expect that world to be given careful attention to detail. And they can expect humor. "Finding Nemo" gives fish their own world, and the underwater realm they live in is paid careful attention, painstakingly captured on film with computer graphics. And the humor is always there. All the characters are funny. I especially like the sequences from the inside of a fish tank in the dentist's office, with a bunch of fish including Gill (Willem Dafoe's vocal talents), who constantly tries to escape. By doing so, Gill has suffered major injuries, including landing on the dentist's tools and getting sliced up. This is, of course, a parody of escaping POWs. The fact that Willem Dafoe was in the great war movie "Platoon" might have something to do with that. This is taken from my "Monsters, Inc." review: "Pixar once again not only expands our mind, but our very worlds. I respect their company and commitment values very much, as you can read in my 'Toy Story' review. They stick to the values that made Disney films so family-friendly back in the fifties and sixties: Respect for the audience, respect for quality, and respect for the audience's INTELLIGENCE, something Disney, who has recently coughed up a bunch of lousy, thoughtless sequels, has forgotten. Now, I know that LEGALLY Disney is co-creator of 'Toy Story' and 'Monsters, Inc.,' but they really are not. They just give Pixar the money and get their name branded on the front box of the film. And even then, I have heard multiple claims that Disney is very mean-spirited towards Pixar (read into sequel trouble for 'Toy Story 3') and gives them the bare minimum. With "Finding Nemo," I still stick towards what I said. Pixar Animation Studios is probably the best family film company out there right now, I really hope they seperate from Disney some day and form their own production company. They know what interests both kids and adults, and it's almost creepy how they can make their films so engaging and fun to watch. This is one to take the kids to, and afterwards, maybe even sneak back into again by yourself.
Rating:
Summary: Same story, different characters
Review: This movie begins with a tragedy (like Bambi and The Lion King).
It also includes physical deformity (like Dumbo with his big ears). You would think that they could come up with a storyline that didn't include whiping out the entire family.
Once I "got over it" I enjoyed the rest of the movie. The animation was wonderful.
Rating:
Summary: Typical Disney Film
Review: This is a cute movie. But it starts out with such a sad beginning and some pretty scary parts. Personally, i think it is for older kids. My twin 6 yr olds and my 3 yr old will not watch it. it is too scary and sad. If they could see beyond those scenes, they'd love the movie. Some of the humor is hard to catch, but when you do, it's hilarious. I'll watch it again, but my kids aren't interested. Maybe in another year or two. Why can't Disney make a film that doesn't have a tragic, scary and horrible scene!! Every Disney movie for "kids" has a bad part. Can't they make just a cute, fun and nice movie for kids???
Rating:
Summary: DVD great opportunity to avoid "scary" parts for 2 year old.
Review: Most of the upsetting scenes for my 2 year old daughter occur in the beginning of the film...the mother is eaten, Nemo is kidnapped, and the father is chased by a large shark. But the rest of the movie is absolutely wonderful and very entertaining for her. I like that the dvd has scene selection. We simply start up the movie for her after the "scary" scenes, and we haven't had to worry about nightmares.
Rating:
Summary: Finding Nemo
Review: Wonderful movie for both young and old. I really enjoyed it.
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