Psycho's Movie Reviews #255: Finding Nemo (2003)

Finding Nemo is a 2003 American computer-animated adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Directed and co-written by Andrew Stanton with co-direction by Lee Unkrich, the screenplay was written by Bob Peterson, David Reynolds, and Stanton from a story by Stanton. The film stars the voices of Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould, and Willem Dafoe. It tells the story of an overprotective clownfish named Marlin who, along with a regal blue tang named Dory, searches for his missing son Nemo. Along the way, Marlin learns to take risks and comes to terms with Nemo taking care of himself.

Released on May 30, 2003, Finding Nemo won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, the first Pixar film to do so. It received largely positive reviews from critics, who praised the magnificent visual elements, touching story and punchy, memorable characters that were funny to both young moviegoers and their parents. The film was also nominated in three more categories, including Best Original Screenplay. Additionally, it became the highest-grossing animated film at the time of its release, and was the second-highest-grossing film of 2003, earning a total of $871 million worldwide by the end of its initial theatrical run.

Finding Nemo is the best-selling DVD title of all time, with over 40 million copies sold as of 2006, and was the highest-grossing G-rated film of all time before Pixar's own Toy Story 3 overtook it. The film was re-released in 3D in 2012. In 2008, the American Film Institute named it as the 10th greatest animated film ever made as part of their 10 Top 10 lists. A sequel, Finding Dory, was released in June 2016.

Plot

Marlin is a clownfish who lives in an anemone in the Great Barrier Reef. His wife, Coral, and most of their eggs are killed in a barracuda attack. Only one damaged egg remains, which Marlin names Nemo.

Years later, Marlin is overprotective of Nemo. On Nemo's first day of school, Marlin embarrasses Nemo, and the two fight. While Marlin is talking to Nemo's teacher, Nemo defiantly approaches a nearby speedboat, where he is captured by a pair of scuba divers. Marlin pursues the boat in vain and meets Dory, a blue tang who suffers from acute short-term memory loss, who offers her help. The two encounter three sharks who've sworn to abstain from eating fish. Marlin discovers a diver's mask that fell from the boat; he accidentally hits Dory with it, giving her a nosebleed. The scent sends one of the sharks into a feeding frenzy, but they flee after accidentally setting off a ring of old naval mines, which knock Marlin and Dory unconscious.

Nemo is placed in an aquarium in the office of dentist Philip Sherman in Sydney, Australia. He meets the "Tank Gang", including yellow tang Bubbles, starfish Peach, cleaner shrimp Jacques, blowfish Bloat, royal gramma Gurgle, and damselfish Deb, led by Gill, a Moorish idol. Nemo learns he is to be given to Sherman's niece, Darla, who has killed her previous fish. Gill devises a risky escape plan: Nemo, who can fit inside the aquarium's filter tube, will jam the filter with a pebble, forcing Sherman to put the fish into plastic bags while he cleans the tank, giving them the opportunity to roll out the window and into the harbour. Nemo attempts the maneuver, but fails and is almost killed.

Marlin and Dory wake up unharmed, but the mask falls into a deep trench. They descend after it and encounter an anglerfish that chases them. Dory memorizes the address written on the goggles, and they escape. Dory and Marlin receive directions from a school of moonfish, but Marlin disregards them to take what he believes is a safer route. They stumble into a forest of jellyfish, the stings of which knock them unconscious. They awaken in the East Australian Current with a group of sea turtles including Crush and his son, Squirt. Marlin tells them about his quest, and the story is relayed across the ocean to Sydney where a pelican, Nigel, tells the Tank Gang. Inspired by his father's bravery, Nemo makes another attempt to jam the filter and succeeds, and soon the aquarium is covered in green algae.

Marlin and Dory exit the East Australian Current and are consumed by a blue whale. Dory tries communicating with the whale, which expels them through its blowhole at Sydney Harbour. They meet Nigel, who helps the pair escape from a group of seagulls and takes them to the dentist's office. Sherman has installed a new high-tech filter, foiling the Tank Gang's escape. Darla arrives, but Nemo plays dead to save himself. Nigel causes a disturbance, terrifying Darla and throwing the office into chaos. Marlin, seeing Nemo's act, believes Nemo is dead. After Sherman throws Nigel out (along with Marlin and Dory), Gill helps Nemo escape through a drain that leads to the ocean.

Despondent, Marlin bids farewell to Dory and begins his journey home. Marlin's departure causes Dory to lose her memory. Nemo reaches the ocean and meets Dory, but she does not remember him. However, her memory returns when she reads the word "Sydney" on a drainpipe. Dory reunites Nemo with Marlin, but a fishing trawler captures her in a net along with a school of grouper. With his father's blessing, Nemo enters the net and he and Marlin instruct all of the fish to swim down. Their combined force breaks the boat's net, allowing them to escape. Marlin and Nemo reconcile.

After returning home to the reef, Marlin is more confident while Dory has remained friends with the sharks. Marlin and Dory see Nemo off as he goes to school.

At the dentist's, the filter has broken, and the gang, having been put in bags, have escaped into the harbour. Still stuck in the bags, they ponder what to do next.

Production

The inspiration for Nemo sprang from multiple experiences, going back to director Andrew Stanton's childhood, when he loved going to the dentist to see the fish tank, assuming that the fish were from the ocean and wanted to go home. In 1992, shortly after his son was born, he and his family took a trip to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom (which was called Marine World at the time). There, after seeing the shark tube and various exhibits, he felt that the underwater world could be done beautifully in computer animation. Later, in 1997, he took his son for a walk in the park but realized that he was overprotecting him and lost an opportunity to have a father-son experience that day.

In an interview with National Geographic magazine, Stanton said that the idea for the characters of Marlin and Nemo came from a photograph of two clownfish peeking out of an anemone.

In addition, clownfish are colourful, but do not tend to come out of an anemone often. For a character who has to go on a dangerous journey, Stanton felt a clownfish was the perfect type of fish for the character. Pre-production of the film began in early 1997. Stanton began writing the screenplay during the post-production of A Bug's Life. As a result, Finding Nemo began production with a complete screenplay, something that co-director Lee Unkrich called "very unusual for an animated film". The artists took scuba diving lessons to study the coral reef.

Stanton originally planned to use flashbacks to reveal how Coral died but realized that by the end of the film there would be nothing to reveal, deciding to show how she died at the beginning of the movie. The character of Gill also was different from the character seen in the final film. In a scene that was eventually deleted, Gill tells Nemo that he's from a place called Bad Luck Bay and that he has brothers and sisters in order to impress the young clownfish, only for the latter to find out that he was lying by listening to a patient reading a children's storybook that shares exactly the same details.

The casting of Albert Brooks, in Stanton's opinion, "saved" the film. Brooks liked the idea of Marlin being this clownfish who isn't funny and recorded outtakes of telling very bad jokes.

The idea for the initiation sequence came from a story conference between Andrew Stanton and Bob Peterson while they were driving to record the actors. Although he originally envisioned the character of Dory as male, Stanton was inspired to cast Ellen DeGeneres when he watched an episode of Ellen in which he saw her "change the subject five times before finishing one sentence". The pelican character named Gerald (who in the final film ends up swallowing and choking on Marlin and Dory) was originally a friend of Nigel. They were going to play against each other with Nigel being neat and fastidious and Gerald being scruffy and sloppy. The filmmakers could not find an appropriate scene for them that did not slow the pace of the picture, so Gerald's character was minimized.

Stanton himself provided the voice of Crush the sea turtle. He originally did the voice for the film's story reel and assumed they would find an actor later. When Stanton's performance became popular in test screenings, he decided to keep his performance in the film. He recorded all his dialogue while lying on a sofa in Unkrich's office. Crush's son Squirt was voiced by Nicholas Bird, the young son of fellow Pixar director Brad Bird. According to Stanton, the elder Bird was playing a tape recording of his young son around the Pixar studios one day. Stanton felt the voice was "this generation's Thumper" and immediately cast Nicholas.

Megan Mullally was originally going to provide a voice in the film. According to Mullally, the producers were dissatisfied to learn that the voice of her character Karen Walker on the television show Will & Grace was not her natural speaking voice. The producers hired her anyway, and then strongly encouraged her to use her Karen Walker voice for the role. When Mullally refused, she was dismissed.

To ensure that the movements of the fish in the film were believable, the animators took a crash course in fish biology and oceanography. They visited aquariums, went diving in Hawaii, and received in-house lectures from an ichthyologist. As a result, Pixar's animator for Dory, Gini Cruz Santos, integrated "the fish movement, human movement, and facial expressions to make them look and feel like real characters." Production designer Ralph Eggleston created pastel drawings to give the lighting crew led by Sharon Calahan ideas of how every scene in the film should be lit.

The Great white shark, Bruce, got his name from the movie Jaws (1975). The animatronic shark they used on set while filming Jaws was nicknamed "Bruce" because Steven Spielberg’s divorce lawyer’s name was Bruce Raiman.

The film was dedicated to Glenn McQueen, a Pixar animator who died of melanoma in October 2002. Finding Nemo shares many plot elements with Pierrot the Clownfish, a children's book published in 2002, but allegedly conceived in 1995. The author, Franck Le Calvez, sued Disney for infringement of his intellectual rights and to bar Finding Nemo merchandise in France. The judge ruled against him, citing the colour differences between Pierrot and Nemo.

Localization

In 2016, Disney Character Voices International's senior vice president Rick Dempsey, in collaboration with the Navajo Nation Museum, created a Navajo dubbing of the movie titled Nemo Há’déést’íí which was released in theatres March 18–24 of the same year. The project was thought as a means to preserve Navajo language, teaching the language to kids through a Disney movie. The studio held auditions on the reservation, but finding an age-appropriate native speaker to voice Nemo was hard, Dempsey said, as the majority of native Navajo speakers are over 40 years old. The end credits version of the song Beyond the Sea, covered in the English version by Robbie Williams, was also adapted into Navajo, with Fall Out Boy's lead singer Patrick Stump performing it. Finding Nemo was the second movie to receive a Navajo dubbing: in 2013, a Navajo version of Star Wars was created.

Release/Reception/Box Office

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 99% of 268 reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.70/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Breathtakingly lovely and grounded by the stellar efforts of a well-chosen cast, Finding Nemo adds another beautifully crafted gem to Pixar's crown." Another review aggregation website, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a score of 90 out of 100, based on 38 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a rare average grade of "A+" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars, calling it "one of those rare movies where I wanted to sit in the front row and let the images wash out to the edges of my field of vision". Ed Park of The Village Voice gave the film a positive review, saying "It's an ocean of eye candy that tastes fresh even in this ADD-addled era of SpongeBob SquarePants." Mark Caro of the Chicago Tribune gave the film four out of four stars, saying "You connect to these sea creatures as you rarely do with humans in big-screen adventures. The result: a true sunken treasure." Hazel-Dawn Dumpert of LA Weekly gave the film a positive review, saying "As gorgeous a film as Disney's ever put out, with astonishing qualities of light, movement, surface and colour at the service of the best professional imaginations money can buy." Jeff Strickler of the Star Tribune gave the film a positive review, saying it "proves that even when Pixar is not at the top of its game, it still produces better animation than some of its competitors on their best days." Gene Seymour of Newsday gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, saying "The underwater backdrops take your breath away. No, really. They're so lifelike, you almost feel like holding your breath while watching." Rene Rodriguez of the Miami Herald gave the film four out of four stars, saying "Parental anxiety may not be the kind of stuff children's films are usually made of, but this perfectly enchanting movie knows how to cater to its kiddie audience without condescending to them."

Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times gave the film three-and-a-half out of five, saying "The best break of all is that Pixar's traditionally untethered imagination can't be kept under wraps forever, and "Nemo" erupts with sea creatures that showcase Stanton and company's gift for character and peerless eye for skewering contemporary culture." Stephen Holden of The New York Times gave the film four out of five stars, saying "Visual imagination and sophisticated wit raise Finding Nemo to a level just below the peaks of Pixar's Toy Story movies and Monsters, Inc.." Terry Lawson of the Detroit Free Press gave the film three out of four, saying "As we now expect from Pixar, even the supporting fish in "Finding Nemo" are more developed as characters than any human in the Mission: Impossible movies." Claudia Puig of USA Today gave the film three and half out of four, saying "Finding Nemo is an undersea treasure. The most gorgeous of all the Pixar films—which include Toy Story 1 and 2, A Bug's Life and Monsters, Inc.—Nemo treats family audiences to a sweet, resonant story and breath-taking visuals. It may lack Monsters, Inc.'s clever humour, but kids will identify with the spunky sea fish Nemo, and adults will relate to Marlin, Nemo's devoted dad." Bruce Westbrook of the Houston Chronicle gave the film an A-, saying "Finding Nemo lives up to Pixar's high standards for wildly creative visuals, clever comedy, solid characters and an involving story." Tom Long of The Detroit News gave the film an A-, saying "A simple test of humanity: If you don't laugh aloud while watching it, you've got a battery not a heart."

Lou Lumenick of the New York Post gave the film four out of four, saying "A dazzling, computer-animated fish tale with a funny, touching script and wonderful voice performances that make it an unqualified treat for all ages." Moira MacDonald of The Seattle Times gave the film four out of four, saying "Enchanting; written with an effortless blend of sweetness and silliness, and animated with such rainbow-hued beauty, you may find yourself wanting to freeze-frame it." Daphne Gordon of the Toronto Star gave the film four out of five, saying "One of the strongest releases from Disney in years, thanks to the work of Andrew Stanton, possibly one of the most successful directors you've never heard of." Ty Burr of The Boston Globe gave the film three and a half out of four, saying "Finding Nemo isn't quite up there with the company's finest work—there's finally a sense of formula setting in—but it's hands down the best family film since Monsters, Inc." C.W. Nevius of The San Francisco Chronicle gave the film four out of four, saying "The visuals pop, the fish emote and the ocean comes alive. That's in the first two minutes. After that, they do some really cool stuff." Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post gave the film a positive review, saying "Finding Nemo will engross kids with its absorbing story, brightly drawn characters and lively action, and grown-ups will be equally entertained by the film's subtle humour and the sophistication of its visuals." David Ansen of Newsweek gave the film a positive review, saying "A visual marvel, every frame packed to the gills with clever details, Finding Nemo is the best big-studio release so far this year."

Richard Corliss of Time gave the film a positive review, saying "Nemo, with its ravishing underwater fantasia, manages to trump the design glamour of earlier Pixar films." Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly gave the film an A, saying "In this seamless blending of technical brilliance and storytelling verve, the Pixar team has made something as marvellously soulful and innately, fluidly American as jazz." Carrie Rickey of The Philadelphia Inquirer gave the film three out of four, saying "As eye-popping as Nemo's peepers and as eccentric as this little fish with asymmetrical fins." David Germain of the Associated Press gave the film a positive review, saying "Finding Nemo is laced with smart humour and clever gags, and buoyed by another cheery story of mismatched buddies: a pair of fish voiced by Albert Brooks and Ellen DeGeneres." Anthony Lane of The New Yorker gave the film a positive review, saying "The latest flood of wizardry from Pixar, whose productions, from Toy Story onward, have lent an indispensable vigour and wit to the sagging art of mainstream animation." The 3D re-release prompted a retrospective on the film nine years after its initial release. Stephen Whitty of The Star-Ledger described it as "a genuinely funny and touching film that, in less than a decade, has established itself as a timeless classic." On the 3D re-release, Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly wrote that its emotional power was deepened by "the dimensionality of the oceanic deep" where "the spatial mysteries of watery currents and floating worlds are exactly where 3D explorers were born to boldly go".

Finding Nemo was included in multiple best-of lists. The film appeared on professional rankings from BBC and The Independent based on retrospective appraisal, as one of the greatest films of the twenty-first century. Several publications have listed it as one of the best animated films, including: IGN (2010), USA Today, Elle (both 2018), Parade, Complex, and Time Out New York (all 2021). In December 2021, the film's screenplay was listed number 60 on the Writers Guild of America's "101 Greatest Screenplays of the 21st Century (So Far)".

During its original theatrical run, Finding Nemo grossed $339.7 million in the United States and Canada and $531.3 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $871.0 million. It was the second-highest-grossing film of 2003. The film sold an estimated 56.4 million tickets in the US in its initial theatrical run.

Finding Nemo set an opening weekend record for an animated feature, making $70.6 million worldwide. It would hold this record until Shrek 2 took it the following year. Upon its release, the film took the number #1 spot off of Bruce Almighty. When 2 Fast 2 Furious opened during the second week, Finding Nemo was put into second place. It then returned to the number #1 spot for a brief period of time until it was taken by Hulk. The film ended up spending 11 weeks in the top 10 domestically (including 7 weeks in the top 5), remaining there until August 14. It became the highest-grossing animated film in North America ($339.7 million), outside North America ($531.3 million), and worldwide ($871.0 million), in all three occasions out-grossing The Lion King. In North America, it was surpassed by both Shrek 2 in 2004 and Toy Story 3 in 2010. Outside North America, it stands as the fifth-highest-grossing animated film. Worldwide, it now ranks fourth among animated films. Moreover, it was the highest-grossing Disney film for three years before being surpassed by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest in 2006.

The film had impressive box office runs in many international markets. In Japan, its highest-grossing market after North America, it grossed ¥11.2 billion ($102.4 million), becoming the highest-grossing foreign animated film in local currency (yen). It has only been surpassed by Frozen (¥25.5 billion). Following in biggest grosses are the U.K., Ireland and Malta, where it grossed £37.2 million ($67.1 million), France and the Maghreb region ($64.8 million), Germany ($53.9 million), and Spain ($29.5 million).

Budget $94 million

Box office $940.3 million

My Review

Okay, I am NOT a huge Nemo fan, but considering the film's modest pretences and how much kids loved it, who am I to complain--especially since the animation is so nice? Plus, the film is much, much better than the knock-off film, Shark Tale.

The film has one of the simplest plots I have ever seen in a kids movie. Nemo loves his dad and vice-versa. When Nemo is captured for a home aquarium, the timid dad springs to the rescue with rather predictable results. There are no major surprises BUT the journey along the way is pleasant and cute. The kids will no doubt love it but some parents may find it a bit "sticky" and shallow like I did. But considering how much fun my daughter had watching it, this can all be forgiven.

When I was a kid my circle of friends included a guy we nicknamed Nemo because his last name (he was Polish) had an abundance of c's and z's in it that made pronunciation impossible. That really doesn't have anything to do with the movie, but until Finding Nemo came along, I had never given my friend Nemo's nickname a second thought.

I have to say, the picture was pretty clever with it's characters and dialog. When little Nemo wound up in Australia I was asking myself how the writers were going to pull off the long shot of having father Marlin track him down and get him back to the ocean. They actually did it in a way that seemed believable enough even though you have to stretch your sensibilities. You could say the same about some serious dramas that are being made today.

This one is tailor made for kids young and old and it's message of persevering against all odds is a valuable one. There's also some slick inside jokes if you're quick enough to keep up the pace; the summit of Mount Wannahockaloogie still has me cracking up.

This movie is just gorgeous to look at, really the animation is just stunning, with the blue backgrounds and colourful characters. My only criticism is that although there are some very funny moments, like Dory speaking whale (Ellen DeGeneres was born to speak whale, really she was) and Barry Humphries's shark, I don't think it is as laugh-out loud funny as Toy Story. Finding Nemo is definitely the most beautiful visually of the Pixar movies, I would certainly pick it over Cars. The music by Thomas Newman was just beautiful, and I always look out for this in a movie, and it was a delight hearing "Beyond the Sea" over the end credits. The characters are genuinely memorable, especially Dory and Bruce. And who can forget the girl Darla, with the Psycho music? (that is really terrifying). The voice talents are very good indeed, especially Ellen DeGeneres, and I liked Willem Dafoe's Gill. Albert Brooks made a wonderfully paranoid father figure, and I loved the plot about Marlin's son Nemo being taken by divers and Marlin (a clown fish) racing to find him. That is simple, but we meet characters like the turtle, so the film is filled with fun, enough to satisfy the fussiest child. In conclusion, 9/10 for the visuals and the characters. Outstanding!

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{I had no idea that a stage show of the film existed, don't get me wrong it's clever how they are using puppets, but it's so unsettling. It's the eyes!!!}