Pixar and Disney team up again looking for their fifth straight hit in Finding Nemo, a family comedy that avoids the toys, the bugs and the monsters and goes much deeper... into the ocean, that is.

Finding Nemo is about Marlon (Albert Brooks), a father fish, who, after losing 199 children and his wife to a deadly creature, loses his remaining son Nemo to a scuba diving dentist. The dentist takes the little clown fish back to his aquarium in his office, preparing to give him away to his psychotic niece, who is known only as a "fish killer." Meanwhile, Marlon sets out with another fish named Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), who has a short-term memory loss problem, to save Nemo.

The interesting thing about Finding Nemo is that it is not as much a comedy as it is a dramatic adventure story. Unlike the other Pixar films, which, most notably, include the two Toy Story films, Finding Nemo is not nearly as funny. Whether its lack of comedy is intentional or not is anybody's guess, but it is clear that the company has begun to focus more on visual effects than on screenplay. That's not to say that the screenplay is bad - it has plenty of intermittent moments here and there, and overall the dialogue is very sound - but it isn't nearly as funny.

Nevertheless, children, looking for only the more simple pleasures such as goofy looking fish, should still find the movie entertaining. Parents and other older people can enjoy it, but not nearly to the extent that they enjoyed Toy Story.

Still, something has to be said about the visual effects in Finding Nemo. In Monsters, Inc., it seemed as though the CGI was beginning to wane; things were just a little cartoony, and a little blurry. Finding Nemo has some of the most amazing graphics to date; it should definitely earn an Oscar nomination come March. The water effects are absolutely stunning; it appears as though Pixar filmed real water and just placed computer-animated fish on the screen. The special effects are absolutely dazzling, and immensely detailed.

Finding Nemo is a fun adventure story with great graphics, but lacks some of the comedy that made the other Pixar/Disney movies so great. The other high points of the movie allow the companies to get away with it this time, but it would have been nice to be able to laugh a little more.

Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.