Walt Disney Studios didn’t bring pyro, sizzle reels or movie stars (not immediately anyway) to their CinemaCon 2016 presentation — they brought a serious chunk of the long-awaited Pixar sequel “Finding Dory.”
As convention attendees saw in the first 27 minutes of the film — a spinoff from the classic “Finding Nemo” — Ellen DeGeneres returns to voice the lovable blue fish who suffers from memory loss.
Without revealing too much, 13 years later, none of the charm of the original has faded. The opener shows us a young, absurdly cute Dory learning to cope with her condition until she is inevitably separated from her parents.
Flash forward to present day, Dory is happy bobbing along with her rescued pal Nemo and his dad. Something in her memory gives, however, and, as the the initial trailers revealed, she remembers her family, recalls their separation and is desperate to find them.
The three fish embark on journey from the Atlantic to the Pacific, with the help of some turtles rocking accents straight out of SNL’s “The Californians” sketch.
Idris Elba makes a memorable turn voicing a helpful if not testy sea lion — and Sigourney Weaver has a fantastic cameo that winds up being a gratifying recurring joke.
“Finding Dory” hits theaters June 17.