Video review: "Finding Dory"

If “Finding Nemo” was groundbreaking filmmaking, then the long-gestating sequel “Finding Dory” is cinematic comfort food. It’s not really necessary, and it certainly doesn’t match its predecessor, but we get a warm feeling just from having it around.

Set some time after the last adventure, the star here is Dory, the forgetful blue tang voiced by Ellen DeGeneres. We find out more about her backstory, such as the fact her funny/annoying short-term memory loss is not the result of some injurious experience, but something she grew up with as a little fishy.

My friend Ed Johnson-Ott of NUVO Newsweekly, a wonderful film critic and even better human being, correctly noted that this revelation irrevocably alters how we feel about Dory as a special-needs person, likening it to his own family.

“Dory is presented as what she is: an individual trying to work around her limitations. She assumes that most of those around her will help when they can, and most of the time she is right,” he wrote. “Individuals like Dory remind us that we are a community and, especially when one of us is a little more vulnerable, we need to behave like one.”

Dory, suddenly instilled with flashes of long-ago memories of her parents, determines to go on a quest to find them. Nebbishy clownfish Marlin (Albert Brooks) and son Nemo (Hayden Rolence) come along, too. They end up at the fictional Marine Life Institute, which first seems like a haven for injured sea life, but has a dark shadow just beneath the surface.

Many of the critters there display odd behavior as a result of their captivity. Some want to be free, but many others are complacent about their stable existence. One is Hank, a cranky octopus lovingly voiced by Ed O’Neill. He can change colors and mold his squishy body into all sorts of shapes, even operating human gizmos like a pro. He helps Dory and the gang, but only if they first scratch his back (so to speak).

A combination of slapstick antics and empathetic storytelling, “Finding Dory” will make us remember why we adored the original film so much, and fall a little bit more in love with Dory.

Bonus materials are extravagant, though you’ll have to buy the Blu-ray version for most of them. The DVD has only the short film “Piper” and a feature-length commentary track by director Andrew Stanton, co-director Angus MacLane and producer Lindsey Collins.

The Blu-ray adds nine deleted scenes and 10 making-of featurettes, touching on everything from creating Hank, the musical team, underwater explorations of real fish who inspired the onscreen ones, interviews with inhabitants of the Marine Life Institute, and more. Personal favorite: “Casual Carpool,” in which Stanton drives some of the key voice actors around.

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Review: "Finding Dory"

Of course it doesn’t hold a candle to “Finding Nemo,” but that’s a pretty darn bright flame to be held up against. We’re talking “best animated film ever” territory here.

“Finding Dory” isn’t that, but it is an agreeable and welcome follow-up to the 2003 hit from Disney/Pixar. Even more than the first “Toy Story” flicks, “Nemo” showed us the boundless possibilities of computer-based animation, in terms of technical accomplishment but especially emotional engagement.

Ellen DeGeneres brought incredible empathy to her voice performance as Dory, a forgetful blue tang who befriends worrywart clownfish Marlin while searching for his fishnapped son, Nemo. A story about reaching out beyond our limits while learning to let go of fears -- and children’s apron strings -- “Nemo” took us on an emotional journey as real as the cross-ocean trek of our gilled companions.

Now it’s Dory’s turn to go on a trip of discovery. Struggling with short-term memory loss her entire life, so she forgets new experiences minute by minute, she suddenly has dim flashbacks of her parents, and sets out to find them -- with her orange-and-white pals in tow, it goes without saying.

Albert Brooks is, of course, back as the voice of nebbishy Marlin, who’s grown a lot in the year since the last story took place, though he’s still overly protective of Nemo. (Hayden Rolence takes over the role of the tyke since original actor Alexander Gould is a twentysomething now.)

This movie, again written and directed by Andrew Stanton, focuses less on the trip than the destination: the (fictional) Marine Life Institute on the California coast. A sort of sea-life utopia with a dark undertow, it’s a place where injured fish are snatched up from the ocean, rehabilitated and returned to the sea -- unless they’re needed for an aquarium in Cleveland, that is.

The human workers are rather blasé about how they treat the critters, and some of the fishies have acquired off-kilter personalities during their confinement, such as a lonely giant oyster who’ll talk your ears (if you have them) off. Sigourney Weaver provides the soothing voice of the tourist park’s narrator, lulling us into a false sense of benevolence.

Among the new characters is Destiny (Kaitlin Olson), a nearsighted whale shark; Bailey (Ty Burrell), a beluga whale convinced his echolocation ability is on the fritz; and Fluke and Rudder (Idris Elba, Dominic West), a pair of lackadaisical sea lions, former residents of the marine institute who now serve as a sort of territorial Greek chorus.

Undoubtedly the film’s finest creation is Hank, a cantankerous octopus voiced by Ed O’Neill. A longtime captive of the marine center, Hank agrees to help Dory find her parents in return for a one-way ticket to a quiet life in a glass box. He can change his color and contort his slippery body to camouflage himself against virtually any object -- not to mention manipulate human tools with hilarious aplomb.

The movie’s a little too overly reliant on slapsticky action to carry the plot forward. I lost count of the number of times Dory & Co. jumped or were dunked from one body of water to another, from a sippy cup to child’s sand pail to a janitor’s mop bucket, without ill effects. You just have to roll with it.

(A former aquarium hobbyist, my brain kept screaming: “But those sudden changes in temperature, pH level and salinity would be deadly!”)

Despite the fact it’s nowhere near as accomplished as its predecessor, I wasn’t disappointed by “Finding Dory.” The second trip is rarely as exciting as the original excursion, but you can ride the current of warm feelings from the last time.

It felt nice to be back in good company, going on another adventure with the gang. Speaking of which: make sure to stay all the way through the credits.