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Movie review: ‘Find Dory' doesn't measure up

For a fish story, "Finding Dory" is pretty small scale. Or at least it seems when tossed into the sea with a whopper like "Finding Nemo." It simply can't measure up emotionally or narratively.

But that's the risk you take when you dare to recreate something so magically inventive.

Gone is the element of surprise, replaced by the deadly curse of familiarity, as "Dory" slavishly recycles the "Nemo" formula. But what else could director-co-writer Andrew Stanton do when his bean-counting bosses at Disney/Pixar asked him to expand on a self-contained story that required no further embellishment? He and his co-writer, Victoria Strouse, do their best to inject freshness by introducing new characters, including a couple of scene-stealing sea lions voiced by former "The Wire" enemies Idris Elba and Dominic West, but it all still feels the same.

It costs the film dearly in terms of its ability to be funny. Like the stoner turtle Crush (voiced again by Stanton). He was hilarious in "Nemo," but here he's just doing the same hippy-dippy schtick. Yawn. Same for Albert Brooks' worrywart dad, Marlin, and his precocious clownfish son, Nemo (now voiced by Hayden Rolance). There's just nothing new for them to bring in terms of comedy and character development.

The lone exception, as you'd expect, is Dory, who makes the 20-fathom leap from comic-relief sidekick to this film's star fish. She doesn't disappoint, and neither does Ellen DeGeneres, who gives glorious voice to the blue tang afflicted with short-term memory loss. DeGeneres and the always amazing Pixar animators do wonders in providing Dory with the pop she needs to standout amid a literal ocean of fish.

Although the bulk of the film is set one year after Nemo's gill-raising adventure, the sequel begins back when Dory was a small fry under the tutelage of her loving parents (Eugene Levy and Diane Keaton). It's a cute scene, and one that talks directly to parents of developmentally challenged children. In this case, it's Dory's inability to remember anything. It's a recurring theme that will challenge Dory throughout. But something in the Marlin-Nemo bond triggers her recollection of Mom and Dad, whom she sets out to find with her two clownfish chums in tow.

Most of the action is set in and around a Monterey Bay-based marine institute, where the soothing voice of Sigourney Weaver can be heard over the facility's PA system stating the joint's droning mantra: Rescue, rehabilitation and release. It's also the place, it turns out, where Dory was born. So, it stands to figure Mom and Dad should be in the vicinity. But where? That search fills the bulk of the movie, as Dory — aided by her childhood friend, a charming whale shark fortuitously named Destiny (Kaitlin Olson), and an ornery octopus with remarkable chameleon-like abilities named Hank (Ed O'Neill) — risks great peril in jumping from tank to tank while avoiding being shipped off to Cleveland with the other blue tangs.

As in "Nemo," the action scenes are intense (perhaps too much for kids under 8), but they're mostly rote variations on Nemo's escape from the dentist's office in the original. There's also too many of those acrobatic leaps and falls, adding to a tedium born of repetition. And the last set piece, involving a variation on "SNL's" oldie-but-goodie Toonces the Cat is simply over-the-top ridiculous.

Perhaps I judge too harshly. And if this were from any other studio, I would undoubtedly be praising it. But this is Pixar, the best in the business. And coming so close on the heels of the studio's emotionally arresting "Inside Out" and Disney's instant classic, "Zootopia," you expect more. You also expect to be moved to tears, the way we were by "WALL-E," "Up" and the "Toy Story" triptych. But all told, this fish left me cold.

"Finding Dory"

Featuring the voices of Ellen DeGeneres, Albert Brooks, Ed O'Neill, Eugene Levy, Diane Keaton, Kaitlin Olson, Ty Burrell, Idris Elba and Dominic West.

(PG for mild thematic elements)

Grade: B-