Finding Nemo is about a clownfish named Marlin and his wife, Coral, who are both expecting babies. However, after an attack, Marlin wakes up to his wife gone, and the only egg left being one, which he names Nemo, a name his wife came up with. Later on, Nemo starts school and goes off on a little adventure with his class, and decides, on somewhat of a dare, to go out close to a boat, where he is captured and taken to a fish aquarium. Marlin spends the remainder of the film searching for him, along with Dory, a blue tang fish who has short-term memory loss.

And this was kind of Pixar’s first step into more emotionally deep animated films. Don’t get me wrong, all of their previous works had emotional depth, but the cores of their stories were a lot more “fun,” so to speak, while Finding Nemo is a lot more heartfelt and personal. This definitely translates into the movie, being one of Pixar’s more heavy movies, even though I wouldn’t exactly call it “sad.” It’s just got much less subtle themes, and instead, themes that correlate with real life a bit more and hit a lot harder than, say, Toy Story or Monsters, Inc.. Themes of loss, hope, and love are much more present here.

I know it’s a bit cliché and generic to talk about the animation when it comes to Pixar movies, but I do think it’s worth mentioning, at least with their earlier works, when they were really changing up the game. Finding Nemo was, without question, the best-looking Pixar film that had been released at the time this came out, and still completely holds up to this day (not that their other movies haven’t). The water effects and especially the lighting are extremely impressive, and all the vibrant colors of the different ocean plants and creatures that come with that also really help make for a very visually pleasing movie to look at. This is kind of random, but I have these TV backlights at home that try to perfectly match what’s onscreen, and I honestly think that this just might be the best use I’ve ever gotten out of them.

Our two main characters, which one of them, funny enough, I would not say is Nemo, are, of course, Marlin and Dory. Marlin is just about one of the most compelling protagonists you can have - an only father who has been nothing but good to his son and just simply wants the best for him. You want Nemo to be found and rescued, not just because he’s basically a kid, but simply for the sake of Marlin, mainly because you already know what he’s lost. Dory, on the other hand, keeps this from being too emotionally heavy a movie for kids and adds some fun and levity to everything. Her whole schtick with her short-term memory loss makes for some funny moments, but even aside from that, she is someone who finds the best out of every situation.

When it comes to the other side of the picture with the characters, you essentially have a whole other group with Nemo and the other fish in the fish tank. I wouldn’t say Nemo is necessarily a great character on his own, but, again, you like him anyway because of the situation with his father, as well as because of the damaged fin he has. He is, in a way, kind of an underdog because of that. None of the other fish are super worth mentioning, and they are kind of just “there,” I guess, except for Gill, who is voiced by none other than Willem Dafoe. Gill, I would say, is a great side character because of how much he relates to Nemo, but in a way, he serves as more of the “tragic” version of that character in the story: the character that hasn’t really ever gotten the chance to live a fulfilled life (or at least that’s what I was getting out of it). He’s also a really compelling character because he has every reason in the world to be bitter, but instead, he decides to root for Nemo, whether that means he gets back to the ocean or not.

The only reason I don’t rate Finding Nemo any higher kind of just comes down to personal preference. It’s a really good film that I thoroughly enjoy, and have thoroughly enjoyed ever since I was a kid, but I also feel that it’s a film that is a bit on the slow side and doesn’t quite have a satisfying enough payoff by the end of it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a really good way to end a story like this, but even for being just one hundred minutes, it can still feel a little bit long at times, and I just simply wanted a more emotionally powerful resolve to the story. Other than that, though, I don’t really have any criticisms of it and find that it still holds up extremely well, not only in the animation department but as a movie in general.