Hey folks, Harry here... As you know, FINDING NEMO screened at the Paris Hotel during ShoWest in incomplete form. And last time, I told you that a trailer for THE INCREDIBLES was going to be attached to every print of FINDING NEMO. Wellllll, got a call today from Steve Jobs, who wanted to clarify and not have expectations over-shot. There will be a very brief teaser for THE INCREDIBLES attached to FINDING NEMO, but as he stated, the film will be 15 months away from release when we see FINDING NEMO, so they won't have much rendered by that time, and instead what we'll get is a taste, a treat, a bit of chocolate with a tad of coconut, but we shant be getting the almond quite yet. So don't think you're going to be getting a 3 minute trailer for THE INCREDIBLES, cuz you ain't.
Meanwhile... S.H.A.D.O. has signed in with his full review of the rough cut of FINDING NEMO. A film with still quite a bit of work and touches to do, so in all likelihood, the miniscule nitpicks that he has, will be tuned to perfection, as it always is, by the time the film comes out this May... tick tock tick tock... can't we skip April and the rest of March? Dagnabbit! Also, if you want to stay completely pure on the film, I suggest leaving, he does disclose some spoilers that we haven't heard before about this film, and if you do leave, don't check the talkbacks on this film for fear of discussion of the spoiler elements. Here ya go...
Lets recap the evening at the Paris Hotel sneak preview of Finding Nemo.
In the lobby were baskets of goldfish crackers and gummy fish. With ShoWest in full swing, it seems fitting that the Paris Hotel's 'Theatre des Arts' which has a digital projection system installed would show a movie. And what better than one created digitally. Oddly enough, though, none of the four speakers made mention of that fact.
Anyhow, back to the showbiz stuff. The movie was due to start at 7.45, but instead didn't start until about 8.30 because Robert Goulet and the Disney Dancers (fourteen of them) had to do a production number out of 'you've got a friend in me.' That delayed the start by 4 minutes. Then Disney CEO Dick Cook comes on and tells us, basically Pixar has pulled Disney's ass out of the fire on four occasions and has reaped about $1.7 billion in box-office rewards for the mouse studio. He then intros a short Pixar tribute that shows snippets from the other four movies. The reel ends and Cook intros the man who saw the future and made it his, Steve Jobs. Steve-o doesn't really say too much, except runs down the list of upcoming pixar movies (nemo, the incredibles and next lassiter offering, cars). No mention of anything beyond those - interesting. He also added Pixar had only been able to produce a great movie every 18 months or a good movie every 12 months, but now he hopes to make a great one every year. He then intros John Lassiter, calling him the Spielberg of animation. Like Jobs, Lassiter has no place in his life for dressing to impress and walks onstage sporting a sports jacket and hawaiian shirt.
Lassiter tells us about how working at Pixar is a dream come true, about his animation school and mentoring program and, most importantly, his plan to have his kids survive off of theater lobby snack food -- especially drinking root beer using red vines as straws. He goes on to tell us about how nemo came to be (apparently it started as a sketch of a whale and two fish in the director's office) and how after listening to the director's pitch, he was sold at the word "fish." He intros Andrew Stanton, who really didn't say that much, by this time the movie was delayed 40 minutes:
The show begins with a short from 1989, "Knick Knack," which actually fits in with the movie.
Finding Nemo begins by introducing us to Marlin and his wife (she's in this so briefly, i forgot her name as soon as the title came up), two happily married clownfish who have just moved into a spacious new sea anenome.
Mom is a little worried that the place is too big and is worried about her brood of 400-plus spawn (one half named marlin jr, the other named mom jr., and one is named nemo)
Then tragedy strikes (in the form of a barracuda if i know my fish), and after being knocked out, marlin wakes to find himself alone and the proud father of just one spawn, nemo. then the title appears and the movie begins proper.
OK, right off the boat, literally, this movie looks gorgeous. The fusion of animated mediums -both computer and traditional hand drawn - works well together and pushes state oof the art even further.If ever a subject was right for the medium, this is it.****The ocean springs to life with all manner of aquatic life, all rendered in cheerful pastels and moody hues of blue, blueish-green and grey.
Back to the movie. We start off with Nemo trying to wake his dad so he can get to his first day of school. Naturally, having witnessed the demise of his family before the titles, Marlin is a little wary of sending Nemo off to school. We learn that Nemo isn't quite complete, his right fin is smaller than his left fin, which his dad refers to as his 'lucky fin.'
So off little Nemo goes to school and whilst on a field trip, he gets caught up with the kids from the wrong side of the coral. It's during a dare the worrisome Marlin shows up and while he's arguing with the other kids, Nemo takes off and there his troubles begin.
The whole feel of the movie so far is if da Vinci had learnt computer animation while going to cartoon school. The characters and environs look real and even lush, but not too real; the fish, after all, do have cartoonish faces, save perhaps for Bruce the shark durng the chase scene.
Albert Brooks by the way is perfect as Marlin. Ellen DeGeneres is also excellent (if i'm not mistaken, she gets the majority of the lines), and casting Barry Humphries as Bruce was inspired.
I don't want to spoil the movie by giving away too much, so I'll keep the rest short and sweet.
Nemo disappears and Marlin goes looking for him. Marlin runs into Dory the short-term memory-impaired fish. She joins his search. They find a clue as to Nemo's whereabouts and pursue that lead. Along the way they run into a forest of jellyfish (very impressive animation-wise); a hungry Angler fish (sure to give the under-6 crowd shivers); and the star of the show, Bruce, the 12-step great white who takes the duo into a sunken uboat where they can join his gang (i think it was called Fisheaters anonymous). Anyhow, while there something goes wrong and a pretty cool chase ensues (this may be a little too scary for kids).
Meanwhile, we have Nemo enjoying his new life in a (SPOILER) dentist's aquarium inhabited by several fish, including Gill (Willem Dafoe) who is always looking for a way back to the ocean. Nemo by the way, isn't long for the aquarium, as he has been promised to the dentist's niece, who has a habit of killing fish.
Thats it for the plot summary. anymore would ruin it.
Now, what works and what doesn't quite do it.
first, this isn't the searchers, or even the bicycle thief, but it is a pretty good search movie.
the characters need more flesh, especially those in the aquarium. there are a lot of characters introduced, somehow i smell spinoff (hopefully a bruce spinoff). nemo and the aquarium fish need to have their relationships developed. dory is the more interesting of the searching pair. the one character(s) that are gotten down perfectly are the seagulls, they make for great comedy.
the animation, while superb and real looking, isn't quite all there yet. the faces on marlin and dory at times looked pasted on, like they didn't quite go with the body. it is however better than monsters though. and, as we were told before the show, the movie is still a work in progress - towards the end we got a lot of wireframe animation, especially during the escape from the fishing boat).
the transitions between key scenes was a little rough.
the voice talent is excellent. i didn't know ellen degeneres played dory until i told after the movie, and the turtles were dead on - laid back surfer types looking for the next big wave.
the character of the little girl at the end (also a big part of the aquarium subplot) reminded me of a grown up Boo and i'm pretty sure she had the one eyed doll from monsters in her picture. she was also intro'd with the psycho shower music.(i think thats where it came from) the humans, didn't look so good, which is a shame compared to the attention the sealife got. they seemed too cartoonish.
the score, what i noticed of it is subtle, though i'm sure there' going to be a couple of randy newman songs placed in there somewhere.
if i were to place this in a list of best to worst pixar movies (there is no worst, just not as good) i'd put it at number four. i shan't tell what came out ahead of it.
oh yes, there is an outtake at the end of the movie, sort of.....
