"Finding Nemo": Pat an animator on the rear

I, Eric Melin, lowly esteemed movie critic for Scene-Stealers.com, am officially giving those geniuses at Disney’s Pixar animation studios a well-deserved (and wholly imaginary) pat on the rear.

There aren’t many kids movies these days that are worth sitting through. Talk to any parent and let them fill you in on the details. And I personally dread going to any film that is targeted to kids. I can’t stand the noise. I felt like beating the crap out of the little brats in the front row of “The Hulk” the second time I saw that. Apparently, the dark, buried psychological past of Bruce Banner was not as engrossing as the Wild Thorneberrys on a safari. Go figure.

These days, a good kid’s movie is either one of two things: a dark horse critical darling that’s come out of nowhere (see “Babe,” “Babe II: Pig in the City,” and “The Iron Giant”), or a Pixar Studios movie (see “Toy Story” I and II and “Monsters, Inc.”).

Once again, Pixar has proven that you can blend amazing animation, an ambitious concept, an inventive script, and some inside jokes to keep us adults in the game. “Finding Nemo” is a perfect example of their innate ability to scare us enough to make us care, and wow us with such improbable modern imagination. When was the last kids movie you saw with a self-help group for sharks who are trying, against their nature, NOT to eat fish?

And as part of my endless effort to discredit that lame and overrated smash of a hit “Shrek,” I implore “Shrek” fans to watch any Pixar movie and tell me it’s not tops. Shrek can keep his same-Scottish accent-Mike Myers-has-been-doing-since-Saturday Night Live-and-“So I Married An Axe Murderer” ass. And his donkey can keep his tired Eddie Murphy poop jokes, too. Give me “Finding Nemo” or any of the memorable characters from all the Pixar movies in a second. And give them a pat on the rear for me.

“Good game!”