Disney scores again with Nemo

Pixar Animation Studios has come a long way since its first short film with its newest full-length feature, Finding Nemo. Like Pixar's other collaborations with Disney, the latest opens with a short film, Knickknack, made in 1989. The animated short has impressive computer animation, especially since Knickknack is over a decade old. Keeping with the tradition of Disney characters only having one parent, the demise of Nemo's mother sets the stage for the conflict continuing through the rest of the movie. Nemo's father Marlin, voiced by Albert Brooks, is an overprotective father determined to keep his only child safe from the rest of the ocean. He feels he must keep Nemo close because of Nemo's "lucky fin." An interesting fact: Nemo is the first main character in a Disney movie to have a physical handicap. The short fin results from the same incident that killed his mother. Angry at his father, Nemo swims into the open ocean and is captured by a scuba diving dentist. Nemo becomes a tank fish. Marlin begins a quest to find his son. Along the way he meets Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), a nice blue fish with short term memory loss. The two fish encounter many strange characters, including vegetarian sharks and surfer dude sea turtles. They have several brushes with death in the ocean, while Nemo faces his own mortality in the tank. Kids will love the forgetful Dory and the laid back turtles. Parents will enjoy a movie that entertains without sexuality and dirty jokes. The only down side to the movie is its MPAA rating of G. Some scenes, including one with a shipwreck and unexploded mines, should have earned the movie a PG rating. Rating: A-