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Seeing
Dory, Nemo and Marlin back in the Big Blue wasn’t just a monumental movie occasion
after 13 years of waiting for a sequel, but it was also the first time I took
my daughter to the movies.
Lucy is 2,
and almost 3, which she likes to tell everyone about. She had seen Finding Nemo
on TV enough times she could recite ever scene word for word. And as much as
it’s a great film, there's only so many times I can watch it. When I first
showed her the trailer for Finding Dory on my phone, she got super excited. My
wife Nicole and I told her we would take her to see Dory, and the countdown
began.
As part of
her 3rd birthday, this was something of an early present. Our
youngest daughter Olivia, who’s still just 13 months couldn’t come to the
movies naturally, so we left her with the grandparents and took Lucy out for
the day. She even had her own custom made Dory dress my wife made herself.
First up was some lunch then we saw the movie. Trying to explain what going to
the movies is like for a 2 year old for the first time, was something my wife
and I gave some thought. The best way we could describe was like “a really big TV
in a large room, with lots of other people. It will be dark and also a bit
loud”. As we told Lucy this, she took it all in.
Arriving at
the newly refurbished Hoyts Cinema at our local shopping centre, we were
pleased to see the upgraded chairs – now reclining. It was giant compared to
little Lucy, who sat in between my wife and I. The movie started and she
recognised several memorable characters straight away. She watched the screen
ever so carefully and occasionally asked us questions “Where’s Dory? Where’s
Nemo? Where are they going? Who is that fish? Why is Dory sad?” etc, etc. My
wife and I tried to answer these quickly and return Lucy’s attention back to
the screen.
Now for the
film itself…
Well, it’s
no accident Finding Dory is taking the world by storm. It’s a great film. A quality
sequel to the original classic from 2003 and a fine stand alone film in it’s
own right. The character of Dory is very fleshed out, and voiced to perfection
by Ellen DeGeneres. Nemo takes a bit of a backseat this time, and even Marlin
doesn’t get as much screen time as he did the first time around – this is
Dory’s show. And even more so, this film also belongs to a new character; a clever,
crafty and grumpy octopus called Hank (voiced brilliantly by Modern Family’s Ed
O’Neil). He is determined to escape the confines of the aquarium so badly, he
will do anything to achieve that. When he meets Dory, after discovering she’s
been taken into the aquarium and tagged for transport to a special fish
sanctuary, Hank wants her tag so he can live the good life. In exchange, he
offers to help Dry find her parents, who may still be somewhere in the
Aquarium.
The
animation is top notch, the jokes come fast and funny, and the new characters
are fun and engaging. Even though this film centres on Dory’s quest to find her
parents, challenged with an ever slipping memory, the film really belongs to
Hank. His ability to disguise himself, maneuver any obstacle and carry Dory
around in an array of objects filled with water is the stuff of legends. And if
you’ve seen the film, you will know the final scene involving a truck is just
pure Pixar gold; you WILL believe an octopus and a fish can commandeer a truck
and escape to freedom.
Lucy
enjoyed the film as well. Until about the last twenty minutes when she started
to get tired and lost interest. She wanted to go. But as the film was so close
to finishing, my wife and I encouraged her to hang in there and see what happens
to Dory. We were just minutes away from the ending when she lost it, and
started balling her eyes out. I picked her up and walked up and down the side
entrance of the cinema till she calmed down. I was still able to see the screen
from the side of the cinema, and watched the last five minutes from there. Even
if Lucy was over it, I wanted to see how it ended.
And now, my
experience of going to the movies has changed. It started when I was a kid,
going to as many movies as I could with friends, or by myself. Then movies
became a good place for a date. As my children came and life got busier, my
trips to the movies were less often, so when I did go, it was a careful choice
about what to see. And now, I’ve taken my child to the movies for the first time.
Despite getting emotional towards the end, Lucy enjoyed herself and will no
doubt want to go back again. I’ll just make sure we get a seat near the exit,
in case she cracks it again, I can hover near there and calm her down, while
still watching the movie off to side J
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