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Finding Nemo 3D

8/10

Stars: Voices: Albert Brooks, Elles DeGeneres, Willem Dafoe, Allison Janney, Alexander Gould, Geoffrey Rush, Elizabeth Perkins, Eric Bana, Barry Humphries, Bruce Spence, Austin Pendleton, John Ratzenberger, Brad Garrett, Vicki Lewis

Director: Andrew Stanton

Most of Pixar's CGI cartoons are readily adaptable to the 3D treatment, but none more so than this fishy classic.

Undoubtedly, the boys who made the Toy Story films, Cars and Monsters Inc, among other hits, fished out another winner with this one, and here it comes up as fresh as a, well, sea anemone.

It's a fin-tastic tale, full of colourful characters, spirited adventure and funny lines.

Single parent Australasian clownfish Marlin (Brooks) loses his son Nemo (Gould), an adventurous young fish with a gimpy fin, when the young lad strays too close to a diver's net and eventually ends up in a tank of eccentric tropical fish.

The rest of the film concerns Nemo's attempts to escape from the tank, paralleled with his father's adventures in the deep ocean in search of him.

In the company of Dory (DeGeneres), a blue ladyfish with a short- term memory problem, Marlin encounters a trio of sharks anonymous (trying to give up eating fish), a school of hip turtles, a forest of deadly jellyfish, a whale (which swallows him, Pinocchio-style) and finally, in Sydney, a pelican that does likewise - only to find Marlin and Dory battling to get out.

Chortles one of the pelican flock: 'Sun's hardly up and Gerald already has more than he can handle'.

Imaginative and witty, but not too complex, and stuffed with exciting moments, the film successfully mixes Australian and American voices - the Aussies get all the best lines - in its vividly computer-animated, and now 3D saga. A sequel is promised for 2015.

David Quinlan

USA 2003. UK Distributor: Walt Disney. Technicolor.
101 minutes. Not widescreen. UK certificate: U.

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

Review date: 24 Mar 2013