Synopsis

Sam Carraclough, a miner who struggles to earn enough money to feed his family, sells the family’s collie, Lassie, to the Duke of Rudling, leaving his young son heartbroken over the loss of his canine companion. The film follows Lassie on the collie’s 500-mile journey from the Duke of Rudling’s estate in the Scottish Highlands to the Carraclough home.

Production notes

This is the 11th movie about Lassie, according to the producers. It is a remake of the 1943 film, Lassie Come Home, and is based on Eric Knight’s 1940 novel Lassie Come-Home.

The movie was filmed in Scotland, Ireland and on the Isle of Man, and though acclaimed by a number of critics, was generally poorly received at the box office. A New York Times reviewer praised the film, saying it “…balances cruelty and tenderness, pathos and humor without ever losing sight of its youngest audience member” and also exclaimed, “This ‘Lassie’ exhibits a repertory of facial expressions that would put Jim Carrey to shame”.

Plot

At the Central Park Zoo, Marty the zebra is celebrating his tenth birthday, but longs to see the rest of the world from outside his pampered life at the zoo. Believing that he can find wide-open spaces to run in Connecticut, he joins with the zoo’s penguins who are trying to escape the zoo. Marty’s friends, Alex the lion, Gloria the hippo and Melman the giraffe, realize Marty’s folly and try to follow him. The four, along with the penguins and two monkeys, Mason and Phil, eventually find themselves at Grand Central Station, but are quickly sedated by tranquilizer darts. The zoo, under protest of animal-rights activists, are forced to ship the animals by sea to Kenya. During their travels, the penguins manage to escape and take over the ship, intent on taking it to Antarctica. Their antics on the bridge cause the crates containing Marty, Alex, Gloria, and Melman to fall off the boat and wash ashore on Madagascar.

The animals are soon able to regroup, initially believing themselves to be in San Diego, California. Upon exploring, however, they come across a pack of lemurs lead by King Julien XIII, and quickly learn of their location. Alex blames Marty for their predicament and attempts to signal for help to get back to civilization, while Marty finds the wild to be exactly what he was looking for, with Gloria and Melman soon joining him in enjoying the island. Alex eventually comes around, though his hunting instincts begin to return after being away from the pampered zoo life for so long. The group is accepted by the lemurs, though King Julien’s adviser, Maurice, cautions them about Alex being a predator. King Julien ignores Maurice’s concerns and persuades the group to help the lemurs fend off the fossa who hunt the lemurs as prey. When Alex begins to turn on his friends and the lemurs, unable to overcome his instincts, King Julien bans him to the far side of the island with the fossa. Marty begins to regret seeing what Alex has turned into.

The penguins, having been to Antarctica and finding it not to their liking, land the boat on Madagascar. Seeing this as a chance to return Alex to New York, Marty, with Gloria and Melman, goes to find Alex but become trapped by the fossa. Alex suddenly appears and approaches Marty as if he were prey, but then turns on the fossa to scare them away from the lemur territory forever, showing Marty he has overcome his predatory nature, and satisfy his meat craving through sushi instead of steak. As lemurs throw a bon voyage celebration for the foursome, the penguins decide not to break the news that the ship has run out of fuel and that they are still stuck on the island.

The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews and won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. It was a financial blockbuster as it grossed over $864 million worldwide. It is the best-selling DVD of all time, with over 40 million copies sold as of 2006. In 2008, the American Film Institute named it the 10th greatest American Animated film ever made during their 10 Top 10.

This film was rated G by the MPAA.

Plot

Shortly after the Ocellaris clownfish Marlin (Albert Brooks) and his wife Coral (Elizabeth Perkins), move in to a new home, Coral is killed by a barracuda along with all of their eggs, except for one. Marlin finds that egg and promises it he will never leave it, naming it Nemo as suggested by Coral. The egg has been damaged in the attack.

Some time later, Nemo (Alexander Gould) begins his first day at school, but is frustrated and embarrassed by his overprotective father. Marlin has constantly warned Nemo about the dangers of the ocean because he himself fears them, and also because one of Nemo’s fins is much smaller than the other due to the damage to his egg. Disobeying his father in order to show him that these fears are unfounded, Nemo deliberately swims out to open water; in the process, he is captured by a scuba diver. Marlin races after the diver’s boat but quickly loses it. As he desperately searches for help, he bumps into Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), a regal tang who suffers from short-term memory loss, but is nonetheless relentlessly optimistic in contrast to Marlin. The pair soon encounter three dieting sharks, Bruce, Anchor and Chum (Barry Humphries, Eric Bana and Bruce Spence respectively), who are members of “Fish Eaters Anonymous,” an organization modeled after AA.

Marlin and Dory inadvertently spark Bruce into a feeding frenzy and are forced to flee into a deep trench, only to be nearly eaten by an angler fish. Here they find a scuba mask dropped by the diver and discover that Nemo has been taken to Sydney, Australia, and Dory surprises herself by being able to remember the address written on it. A passing school of fish (one of whom is voiced by John Ratzenberger) gives them directions to get there via the East Australian Current, and also advises them to go through the trench that leads to it. However, Marlin disregards this warning and leads Dory over the trench, where she is stung nearly to death by a mass of jellyfish.

Meanwhile, Nemo is placed in a fishtank in a dentist‘s office. The dentist, who captured him earlier, plans to give Nemo to his niece Darla (Lulu Ebeling) as a birthday present; the other fish in the tank fear her greatly, knowing her tendency to handle fish so roughly that they die. Their leader, Gill (Willem Dafoe), a Moorish Idol, has been plotting a mass escape and calls on Nemo to jam the tank’s water filter. The first attempt fails, nearly costing Nemo his life, and Gill apologizes for endangering him for personal gain.

Marlin and Dory are found by a group of sea turtles who are riding the East Australian Current, and Dory makes a full recovery. As he befriends the turtle Crush and his son Squirt, Marlin tells some of the sea turtles about his reason for venturing so far from home. His story travels among the sea creatures, eventually reaching Nemo via a friendly Brown Pelican named Nigel (Geoffrey Rush). Nemo is inspired by this account and makes a second attempt on his own to jam the filter, this time meeting with success. The tank begins to get dirty, and the fish hope that the dentist will take them out so he can clean it; once they are in individual plastic bags, they can roll out the window and into the harbor. However, while they are sleeping, he installs a high-tech filter to keep the tank clean automatically, foiling their plan.

Marlin and Dory are swallowed by a blue whale, which delivers them safely to Sydney. Confronted by a pelican and a flock of hungry seagulls in the harbor, they are rescued by Nigel, who takes them to the office as the dentist removes Nemo from the tank and puts him in a bag. When Darla arrives, Nemo pretends to be dead, hoping that he will be flushed down the toilet and thus be able to reach the ocean. Marlin and Dory are shocked to see Nemo belly-up and believe he is truly dead. After they and Nigel are thrown out the window, Gill helps Nemo escape down the drain of the dentist’s sink to the ocean.

Deeply depressed in the belief that his rescue attempt amounted to nothing, Marlin thanks Dory and tells her he is going home on his own. Dory, however, is reluctant to be left by herself again, claiming that she can remember things better when he is around. Marlin still swims away to go home, leaving Dory hopelessly lost and confused. A chance encounter with Nemo jogs her memory and she is able to reunite him with Marlin. Moments later, Dory is caught in a fishing net along with a school of grouper. Nemo has an idea to save her by telling the fish caught in the net to swim down, a trick the other fish in the tank had tried to use to save him from being scooped up in the dentist’s net. Though Marlin is afraid to let him go out of fear of losing him again, he realizes that he has to let Nemo take this chance. The maneuver works, freeing Dory and the grouper, and Marlin reconciles with Nemo and apologizes for being overprotective.

Once they have returned home, Marlin is able to let Nemo “go have an adventure” at school, and he impresses and wins the respect of his neighbors for going across the ocean to find his son. In the epilogue, the automatic cleaner/filter in the dentist’s fish tank breaks down, forcing him to put all the fish in plastic bags while he cleans it out; they soon reach the ocean, but are, hilariously, still stuck in their bags.

Awards

Finding Nemo won the Academy Award and Saturn Award for Best Animated Film. It also won the award for best Animated Film at the Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards, the Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards, the National Board of Review Awards, the Online Film Critics Society Awards, and the Toronto Film Critics Association Awards.

The film received many awards, including:

• Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards for Favorite Movie and Favorite Voice from an Animated Movie, Ellen Degeneres.

Finding Nemo was also nominated for:

• Two Chicago Film Critics Association Awards for Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress, Ellen DeGeneres
• A Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
• Two MTV Movie Awards

In June 2008 the American Film Institute revealed its “Ten top Ten”, the best ten films in ten “classic” American film genres, after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. Finding Nemo was acknowledged as the 10th best film in the animation genre. It was the most recently released film among all ten lists, and one of only three movies made after the year 2000, the others being Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Shrek.