Finding Nemo opens on the Great Barrier Reef off of the Australian coast. A clownfish named Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks), and his mate, Coral (voiced by Elizabeth Perkins), has just found a new home on the reef, where they oversee their eggs. Tragedy strikes when a barracuda attacks this pair and Coral is killed. Marlin survives, as does one egg. The story then jumps ahead a few years. The young fish from the egg has grown up to be Nemo (voiced by Alexander Gould), and, despite Marlin's protests, Nemo is off to his first day of school. Nemo's class is taken by their teacher, Mr. Ray (Bob Peterson), to the "Drop-Off", which leads to the deeper ocean. Fearing for Nemo's life, Marlin follows the class, only to witness Nemo being captured by a human diver. Marlin pursues the diver's boat, but can't catch it.

Desperate for help, Marlin meets Dory (voiced by Ellen DeGeneres), a blue fish who has a short-term memory problem. Despite her handicap, Dory agrees to help Marlin, and they begin to make their way through the ocean, looking for Nemo. Meanwhile, Nemo has been taken to an aquarium in a dentist's office. There, he meets a variety of odd characters, including Gill (voiced by Willem Dafoe), a fish who's determined to escape from the fish-tank. As Marlin races to save his son, Nemo learns that he is destined to go with the dentist's niece, who has a history of killing fish.

OK, let's go with the good news first -- Finding Nemo is a technical marvel. The computer generated material offered here is simply breath-taking. Realistic representation of water has always been a challenge for animators, but the water looks very real in Finding Nemo. The undersea vistas are incredible, and the amount of detail and color will have you searching each shot attempting to take it all in. Whereas liberties were taken with the ants in A Bug's Life, the fish and other sea-creatures in Finding Nemo look very realistic, except for their eyes, of course, which are needed to emote. The movie looked great in the theater, and it loses little of its luster on this DVD. (More on that in a moment.)

The bad news about Finding Nemo is the story. All of the Pixar films can be accused of being light in the story department, most notably Toy Story, but they always had clever central ideas and enough action and comedy, combined with the animation, to carry the film. Apparently, the creative minds at Pixar were determined to give Finding Nemo a detailed story, and this has resulted in a very top-heavy film, which has too many characters, and too little emotion. The biggest problem with Finding Nemo is the lack of a true villain. Nemo and Marlin are both facing a race against time, and they meet characters who aren't nice, but there is no central villain, such as Hopper in A Bug's Life or Randall from Monsters Inc.. This leaves a giant hole in the film. The other main problem with the film is its length. Pixar's films have gradually grown longer, but at 100 mintues, Finding Nemo is about 20 minutes too long. Both in the sense that the movie runs out of gas, and that despite the beauty of the visuals, the film probably won't hold the interest of youngsters for that length of time. The movie has at least three conclusions, and the "suspense" is dragged out too long. Still, the movie has some great moments, and Dory is a fantastic character -- be sure to listen to every word that she says. Even though Finding Nemo is easily the weakest of Pixar's releases thus far, it's still better than most films out there. It's just that Pixar has not only raised the bar for animated films, but for their own creations as well, and Finding Nemo isn't as good as their previous works.

Finding Nemo swims onto Blu-ray Disc courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment. The film has been letterboxed at 1.85:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 25 Mbps. The image is incredibly sharp and clear, showing no grain and no defects from the source material. This is presumably a digital-to-digital transfer, as it looks great. The colors are breathtaking, with the undersea shots showing a rainbow of colors. The image is never overly dark or bright. The image has a nice amount of depth, again the underwater shots look like they could go on forever. The picture offers a good amount of detail and we can see textures on objects. The Disc carries a Dolby TrueHD 7.1 audio track which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 6.0 Mbps. The track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. The stereo effects are very good and we get many examples of sounds coming from the left and right of the screen. The surround sound effects show off the many sounds occurring around the characters and we get some nicely placed individual sounds. The subwoofer really comes into play during the shark scene.

The Finding Nemo Blu-ray Disc release contains many extras spread out across two Discs, some of which vary from the previous DVD release. Disc 1 kicks off with Cine-Explore, which is a video commentary featuring Director Andrew Stanton, Co-Director Lee Unkrich, and Screenwriter Bob Peterson. While this trio talks about the film, we get picture-in-picture concept art and behind-the-scenes photos. "Finding Nemo: A Filmmakers' Roundtable" (17 minutes) is a modern reunion of Stanton, Unkrich, Peterson, Producer Graham Walters, Technical Lead Oren Jacob, and Production Designer Ralph Eggleston, who look back on the film, reminiscing and discussing the film's legacy. "Reinventing the Submarine Voyage" (15 minutes) shows the history of the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride at Disney World and how it was converted into a Finding Nemo ride. Stanton hosts "Deleted Scene: Alt Opening" (3 minutes) which is presented in animated storyboard form and shows more early interaction between Marlin and Nemo. "A Lesson in Flashbacks" (8 minutes) shows us unused scenes which explored the courtship of Marlin and his wife. We get "Knick Knack" (3 1/2 minutes), the short which accompanied Finding Nemo in theaters. We also get the first "Aquarium", which offers a screen-saver like view of the ocean.

Disc 2 opens with "Art Review" (9 minutes) which features concept art from the film which is described by three of the animators. More secrets are revealed in "Making Nemo, a 26-minute behind-the-scenes featurette which shows the progression of the film's production from research on real-life animals, to the animation process. Unfortunately, there is no footage of the voice-actors here. "Exploring the Reef", is a 7-minute segment hosted by Jean-Michel Cousteau, who attempts to educate the viewer about undersea life, but he's constantly interrupted by the cast of Finding Nemo. "Studio Tour" is as a tour of Pixar Studios (6 minutes), hosted by Alexander Gould, the voice of Nemo. "Old School" contains eight sections which show various parts of the early planning and design of the film. "Outtakes" offers four segments which take us into the recording booth to hear lines which weren't used in the film. The Disc contains seven DELETED SCENES which are presented in animated storyboard form. "Publicity Pieces" offers four TRAILERS, and interstitials which were used in various places. "Mr. Ray's Encyclopedia", is an interactive feature which gives the viewer the opportunity to learn more about 13 of the animals featured in the film. Finally, we get six more "Aquariums" to choose from.