Finding Dory Movie Review

Finding Dory is directed by Andrew Stanton and is the long-awaited sequel to 2003's Finding Nemo. Set a year after the events of that film, Finding Dory sees the attention shift onto one of Pixar's most loveable side characters ever Dory, a fish suffering from short-term memory loss. However, as she begins to remember fragments of her past life with her parents, she along with Marlin and Nemo set out on a journey across the ocean to find her missing family. I'm unashamedly a huge fan of Pixar and Finding Nemo was one of those animated films I would pop in and watch over and over again. So naturally, I went into Finding Dory with a healthy mix of excitement and scepticism.

To my surprise, Finding Dory is actually a lot better than I was anticipating. It's a consistently entertaining animated film which caught my attention from the very start and didn't drop it until the credits started to roll. There's enough in here to make you laugh and cry, to make you excited and emotional. In actuality, it's a very charming movie but charming in a way which feels smart as opposed to incredibly forced. It's a perfect animated film in that it can work for people of all ages, be them very young, very old or somewhere in between.

Right off that bat I think the animation, while not as breath-taking as it was for the 2003 original, is fantastic, vibrant and colourful with immense detail put into the sea and land environments as well as the character's themselves. I don't think I'll ever stop rambling on how well Pixar can animate the eyes, but they seem to have it down to an absolute science. It's a wonderful film to look at, but that's what we come to expect with the standard of animation these days being so high. But what makes this movie great like other Pixar efforts is it's perfect blend of action, comedy and heart, on top of some really good voice acting and some memorable characters.

Ellen DeGeneres as Dory is stellar and is the standout in a movie filled with really great amalgamations of voice acting and character animation. But what this movie does so well is understand who the character of Dory is. Let's face it, if we had to hang around Dory all day she would irritate us to no end. But what makes Dory such a good character is that even though you acknowledge how much she'd irritate you, you can't help but empathize with her. When things go wrong for Dory, you feel the desperation she does. When things go well for her, you can't help but silently cheer. And that's what a main character she be, likeable, because if you weren't routing for Dory this movie would fall flat on it's face.

It was also nice to see Marlin and Nemo back in the movie in a way which didn't feel forced, in fact their presence their felt organic to the story the movie was trying to tell. But the other characters who will stick in your mind after you watch this movie are some equally hilarious and memorable side characters. Pixar always seems to create really great side characters which propel the story along and add in good amounts of comedic relief, and Finding Dory is no exception. Hank the Septopus is a brilliant addition as he and Dory's dynamic is one of the film's obvious strengths. Other great additions include Destiny the Whale-shark and Bailey the beluga, but my absolute favourite was this clam character Marlin and Nemo came across, who actually made me laugh more than anything else in this entire movie.

But like other Pixar movies what really makes this movie hit home is how emotionally relatable it can be for people of all ages. While I don't think the movie's emotional moments hit quite as hard as I think they were intending them to (compared to films like Inside Out), they still work and they do give you the feels when it is supposed to. Despite not really making me cry or all that upset, it still works on an emotional level as it does make you feel something, or at least it did for me. On top of this, Finding Dory is a very smartly written film when it comes to how it presents and teaches kids about disability. I think this movie can teach kids valuable lessons; the first being how disabled people can make it without being totally dependant, but the second being how it can be acceptable to make light of a disability you may have. Sometimes, disability is not all doom and gloom and I really appreciated the angle Pixar went with it.

My only true issue with this film is that because this story is trying to be bigger and crazier than Finding Nemo, the situations and scenarios our main characters end up in are incredibly bizarre. On top of this, they almost always seem to place them in life-or-death type situations, which the characters don't seem all that concerned about. It made for a varied, intriguing and well-paced film but it still went against the characterisations they had built up in the previous film. Aside from one minor complaint, I have nothing but praise for Finding Dory.

It's a fairly short review but its a fairly simple movie to whittle down. It's consistently entertaining, has a perfect mix of action/adventure, mystery/intrigue, laughs and emotional moments to give you a varied and fun movie-going experience, and is accessible and enjoyable for people of all ages. It doesn't try to be as creative or original as Inside Out, but what it does do is make you believe that this was a necessary sequel to make and that there was a pretty cool story to be told. The animation's great, the voice work is brilliant, some of the side characters are really funny and memorable and it delicately presents social commentary on disability in a unique way which I didn't think could be done. It's a fine animation and one which deserves to make all the money that it is:


Rating - A-

Thanks for reading,
Matt

Suicide Squad Movie Review

Suicide Squad is directed by David Ayer and is the second DC Extended Universe film to come out this year alone which has seen an enormous critical backlash and huge contrasting opinions amongst fans. Set in a world post the death of Superman, ruthless government operative Amanda Waller firmly believes a contingency plan should be set up should the next Superman be bad. This contingency plan goes by the name of Task Force X, or the Suicide Squad, made up of a team of numerous villains from DC Comics. When a catastrophic event befalls Midway City, the squad of misfits and criminals are tasked with solving the situation with a high risk of them losing their lives.

The real question here is do I think this movie is the disaster piece a lot of professional movie critics would have you believe? No! Suicide Squad for me was a hugely entertaining film from start to finish even if there are numerous storytelling, editing and script issues I could find with it. But for me, what makes this movie as entertaining as it is are the performances on show and the strength of its characters. For me it can boil down to one simple statement; the first act is close to perfect, the second becomes a little messy and loses some steam, but the third act sees an exciting and emotional climax which pulls everything together in a strong finish, winning me over in the end.

What I really appreciate about this film is how unashamedly bold, stylistic and charismatic this film is. David Ayer really goes for it with his direction of this film, making clear statements that this movie is meant to have a huge amount of fun with the awesome characters it has at its disposal. The overall tone created by the dialogue, the use of humour, the visuals, cinematography and soundtrack give this movie a huge amount of character, but in my opinion it also has enough substance to pull it through and create a good comic book movie. And on top of this, I have no complaints with how Ayer filmed the action sequences. They're nothing hugely memorable or ground-breaking, but I did really like how there was no use of shaky cam or quick-cut editing to mask poor stunt work. They serve a purpose in the end and are very entertaining.

And this movie is also the funniest in the DCEU so far, and the way they interject humour into the story makes the film a lot more enjoyable. After all, humans tend to gravitate towards humour and do try and deflect serious situations with jokes. And I believe it is done just the right amount so it doesn't become like a Marvel movie (like Guardians or Ant Man) or doesn't detract from the seriousness of the story.

The main performances are all fantastic and some of my favourite individual moments of the film either are a big character moment for one of them or see two or more characters interact and bounce off of each other. I was a little concerned with Will Smith's Deadshot going into the film but coming out I have nothing but satisfaction for what was done with the character. He never overshadows the whole movie, but has a good amount of emotional substance behind him for him to be humanised and for you as an audience member to care. Smith's comedic delivery was as on point as always, and I really enjoyed the way he bounced off of Joel Kinnamen's Rick Flag, another character who I surprisingly cared a lot about. I'm not a huge fan of Kinnamen but I did enjoy his character particularly the fact that he had a personal reason for being there and a vested interest in the outcome of the situation.

Another actor I'm not necessarily a huge fan of is Jai Courtney. But honest to God, he is phenomenal as Captain Boomerang, a character with no moral compass whatsoever. I love this character so much, and while this movie does tend to humanise a lot of its characters by showing them their backstory and how they got to where they are today, some characters are just assholes. Boomerang is one of them. Only he could crack open a can of beer when a horde of creatures are coming over to kill him. He is a hilarious character, and Courtney knocked it out of the park. But my favourite character in this entire movie was Diablo. He has a fantastic arc in his film, one which has a huge pay off once revelations are made about his character and stuff he has done in the past. He's the one I connected to the most.

Viola Davis plays Amanda Waller really well but two other standouts include Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn and Jared Leto's Joker. Harley Quinn pretty much steals every single scene she is in and because you see snippets of her past like Deadshot, you do strike a connection with her even if at the end of the day she is a crazed lunatic. The Joker's role in this film is very minimal and I can tell that will disappoint people. But his purpose is to flesh out Harley Quinn's character, a purpose he serves very well indeed. I enjoyed Leto's insane mob boss route he took and loved just how far he went with his committed performance. As for the character, the scenes with him in the past are the best, and the scenes with him in present day are the weakest. And ultimately, I wanted a lot more of him than just "the wild card". But hopefully, I'll see more of him in movies to come.

Some characters aren't as fleshed out as others but I feel that was always going to be the case. Killer Croc is essentially just used as comic relief, Katana is humanised a little bit but when it happens it seems too little too late, and calling Slipknot a plot device is an insult to plot devices. And this is where even though I had a huge amount of fun and entertainment with this film, I still found a fair amount of things I thought could've been handled better. Like Batman v Superman, my biggest issues stem from the editing. The first act is edited together perfectly, but the second feels as if there are so many scenes missing. From one watch alone, I could tell there were scenes involving The Joker, Harley Quinn, Rick Flag, Amanda Waller and the movie's villain were just left on the cutting room floor. In the theatrical cut of BvS, a lot of the movie's cut moments were essential character moments. In Suicice Squad, it feels as if scenes which acted to stitch the narrative together were cut out which is ultimately a lot better than cutting key character moments out, but still makes the middle of the film feel disjointed.

There are also a lot of random scenes edited in there which felt out of place and didn't necessarily have the smoothest transition between them. For example, there is one scene of Harley Quinn's past life with The Joker and another involving Katana, both in the second act of the film which made it feel slightly choppy and messed up the narrative in some places. If these DCEU movies have taught us anything, it is that editing out those connective scenes is a really bad idea, and that Warner Brother's executives need to trust their filmmakers when it comes to the movie's final cut.

There are other moments of weak writing here and there which involve Diablo's character arc, a big moment with Rick Flag and the whereabouts of Amanda Waller, but I don't personally understand the criticisms people have of the eventual turn some characters make towards the end. In my opinion, the fantastically written "bar scene" is what made their turn believable to me. But for me the biggest disappointment was the villain. I didn't buy into the romance a certain character had with the person she possessed, and I believe the film struggled to write around the powers it had given her. But the worst thing about the villain is that it has no motivation for the things it is doing at all. That is the biggest aspect you're supposed to get right about an antagonist, and unfortunately the movie's script just does not give it any.

My personal flaws with the movie lie with its villain and some of the editing and storytelling in the film's second act on top of the way The Joker is used in scenes which occur in the present day. Like Batman v Superman, Suicide Squad has a load of really great pieces on the table, it just seems like studio interference means that these pieces aren't always put together in the best possible way. For me though Suicide Squad is a great time due to the performances, the fantastic characters, the brilliant soundtrack and the nods it has to it's growing cinematic universe. I don't agree with how harsh this film has been treated, and I will enjoy revisiting this movie many times more to refine my opinion on it in the future. For now, just know I had a blast with a movie which may at times feel messy, but overall has great things in it to enjoy:


Rating - B

Thanks for reading,
Matt