Finding Dory (DVD)

Stars: Voices: Ellen DeGeneres, Albert Brooks, Ed O'Neill, Hayden Rolence, Idris Elba, Diane Keaton, Eugene Levy, Dominic West, Kaitlin Olson, Bill Hader, Sigourney Weaver, Ty Burrell

Director: Andrew Stanton

Dory (DeGeneres), the blue tang fish with short-term memory loss, determines to find her long-lost parents. Soon separated from her clown-fish friends Marlon (Brooks) and Nemo (Rolence), her problem, naturally, involves forgetting directions and, although transported across the ocean by an enthusiastic turtle, she ends up in a California aquapark, where she becomes involved with a seven-tentacled octopus called Hank (O'Neill), a beluga with telepathic powers and a (very) near-sighted whale shark (Olson).

Often shot against murky marine backgrounds, this is much more static than Finding Nemo and not half as much fun. But restless children should be persuaded to stay to the end (or woken up), as the story finally picks up pace when Dory's friends try to free her (and the octopus) from a truck heading inland.

The octopus's abilities for chameleon-like camouflage are fun, if underused, but Dory's relationships with her parents are ickily sentimental, while Dory herself, an amusing sideline attraction in Nemo, just doesn't make a viable central character.

The film does retain some of the charm of the original, but the story is very slim. 'This isn't going anywhere,' moans Dory (a marathon, if repetitive voiceover for DeGeneres) and the film flogs her memory loss half to death.

David Quinlan

USA 2016. UK Distributor: Disney. Technicolor.
94 minutes. Not widescreen. UK certificate: U.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 0, Drugs 0, Swearing 0.

Review date: 29 Nov 2016