feel compelled to admit that part of me was actually rooting for Pixar’s new movie Finding Nemo to suck horribly. It’s not that I have something against Pixar, or animation in general. Far from it—some of the greatest American films of all time have been animated, to say nothing of the often brilliant Japanese anime that has been produced over the past twenty years. It’s just that when I see an animated movie that features interesting, well-developed characters, witty dialogue, an engaging story, and beautiful visuals, I can’t help but wonder why Hollywood finds it so difficult to crank out a few more live-action films that can claim these strengths. I eventually decided to check Finding Nemo out, if only because I had a moral and philosophical objection to paying good money for 2 Fast 2 Furious (an interesting position, I realize, coming from someone who voluntarily saw Dreamcatcher on its opening night, a movie so transcendently awful I’m still not sure if I saw it or merely dreamed it).


But about two minutes into Finding Nemo, I forgot all about such concerns. So far, this is the best mainstream movie of the summer, bar none. Allow yourself to succumb to this reality and you will enjoy yourself immensely. The fact is, the summer 2003 film that does the best job of treating its audience like thoughtful, intelligent people was made for eight-year olds and stars a bunch of cartoon fish. I’m not sure if that’s depressing or exhilarating, but it’s undeniable. Kids will love Finding Nemo for being a funny and exciting adventure story, while adults will enjoy its winking, slyly ironic tone. It also features the absence of both Keanu Reeves and Vin Diesel, which should be a selling point we all can agree on.


My appreciation of Finding Nemo began with its very first scene. Marlin (voice of Albert Brooks) is a clownfish happily celebrating the upcoming birth of his children with his wife (the sight of a couple gazing down adoringly upon several hundred fish eggs provides a quality opening laugh). But the arrival of a shark spoils this underwater idyll, and Marlin’s wife is killed, along with all but one of the eggs, which grows up to become Nemo. This scene reminded me of a time when studios did not treat children like pieces of extraordinarily fragile glass who would shatter the moment they had to confront the reality of death (remember the fate of Bambi’s mother?). The film neither dwells on the mother’s death nor treats it flippantly. It is a painful reality, the movie says, and it must be dealt with. In retrospect, this is the moment when Finding Nemo won me, the skeptical adult viewer, over.


Several years later we confront Marlin and Nemo again. Marlin is now a neurotic basket case obsessed with his son’s safety, while little Nemo chafes under his Dad’s overly watchful eye. In the course of a school field trip along Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, Nemo wanders too far away from the group and is snatched up by a human diver. Frantic, his father speeds after him, but to no avail. The rest of the movie intercuts Marlin’s quest to get his son back with Nemo’s attempts to escape from the dentist’s fish tank in which he is now trapped.


Of course, it wouldn’t be a kid’s movie if both Marlin and Nemo didn’t run into the usual array of sweetly eccentric characters. Finding Nemo doesn’t disappoint, providing a supporting cast more interesting than most of the one-note dullards who back up Neo and Morpheus in The Matrix Reloaded. Most prominent among these is Ellen DeGeneres as the voice of Dory, a good-natured if somewhat forgetful fish who is eager to help the timid Marlin find his missing son. DeGeneres has some truly classic moments in this film, including several scenes in which she attempts to “speak whale”, which to her mind constitutes making a bunch of random moaning and groaning noises that had the patrons in my theater laughing uproariously (your faithful correspondent among them). Also strong are Geoffrey Rush as Nigel, a pelican who has a problem slamming full-speed into glass windows, Andrew Stanton (pulling triple duty as the writer-director of the film) as surfer dude sea turtle Crush, and Stephen Root in a hilarious bit part as one of Nemo’s fellow prisoners who has a bit of an obsession with the bubbles emerging from the fish tank’s filter.


As with the great Toy Story films, and, I’m told, Monsters, Inc., the folks at Pixar manage to effortlessly blend comedy and adventure in Finding Nemo, a feat that just about every live-action summer blockbuster attempts but rarely accomplishes. I can’t imagine many other action movies will be able to equal the sheer suspense generated by watching Marlin and Dory navigate a mazelike gauntlet of potentially lethal jellyfish, or Nemo’s heroic attempts to block his tank filter and dirty the water before the dentist can present him as a gift to his horrid niece Darla. This is edge-of-your-seat stuff. Why? Because Finding Nemo has managed to make you care about the fate of its characters before asking you to invest yourself in watching them risk life and limb. In other words, the filmmakers realize that making the characters interesting to the audience will make that audience give a damn about seeing those characters cheat death. Holy crap, what a concept! Somebody alert Jerry Bruckheimer immediately, assuming he’s not off clubbing baby seals or whatever it is he does with his free time.


So, after a long, arduous search, we have it. There’s finally a summer movie that refuses to talk down to its audience, presents flawed yet likeable characters, combines action and humor into a genuinely satisfying mix, and features some of the more spectacular visuals you’ll see in a film this year. Yes, it’s a movie written primarily for little kids. Yes, it’s a movie that stars pixilated fish. Yes, it’s a cartoon (although dubbing any Pixar film a “cartoon” feels slightly foolish and condescending, given what that studio has accomplished). What other movie features a couple of menacing sharks desperately attempting to avoid eating fish by adhering to a twelve-step program that involves chanting “Fish are our friends, not our food?” None that I can think of. See this movie, and appreciate its charms. Right now it stands out as a shining example of quality moviemaking amid a long, hot summer of mediocrity.