
Entertaining fluff, but nothing more. One year after the events of Finding Nemo, Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) searches for her parents, from whom she was separated as a child. The magic is gone, of course, and with it the vastness of the ocean: most of the action in this film takes place in and around California's Marine Life Institute. The humor, too, is more repetitive, with endless variations on Dory's short-term memory loss. But most significantly, the film lacks the gravitas of Nemo, as we discover that a quest to find one's self-sufficient parents is much less compelling than one to find a missing child, even when the journey is really one of self-discovery. Pleasant enough, though, on its own terms.