One week away from Finding Dory's release and reviews are starting to pour in. And so far, they're generally positive.

　　Finding Dory is set six months after Finding Nemo, when the forgetful Dory suddenly remembers her family and sets out to find them with her friends, Marlin and Nemo.

　　The movie stars Ellen DeGeneres as the titular character, Albert Brook as Marlin, and Hayden Rolence as Nemo. Other actors appearing in the film include Idris Elba, Eugene Levy, Diane Keaton, and Modern Family's Ed O'Neill and Ty Burrell.

　　Finding Dory is set to be Pixar's biggest opening ever with a debut weekend projection of between $115 million and $120 million. You can find out what the critics think below.

　　You can head over to GameSpot sister site Metacritic for a further breakdown Finding Dory's critical reception.

　　Film: Finding DoryDistributor: DisneyRelease Date: June 17Rating: G

GameSpot

"The best Pixar movies possess a rare magic; they mix deep emotional resonance with broad laughs. One moment your sides are splitting with laughter, and the next you're on the verge of tears. Finding Dory achieves just that, making for a rare sequel that surpasses the original. I've avoided watery puns so far in this review, but I can't resist this apt parting shot: Finding Dory is a new high watermark, not just for Pixar, but for family films in general." -- Randolph Ramsay [Full review]

　　

Variety

"At a certain point, it will probably strike you that the title of 'Finding Dory' seems like a misnomer (albeit a catchy one), since the story is all about Dory trying to find Charlie and Jenny. But, of course, it's really about Dory discovering who she is after she gains the ballast of having a little bit of memory. But only a little bit. Dory's glory is that her amnesia makes her totally responsive to life. She's living in a pure existential state, unencumbered by the past, and that’s why she gets things done. Her way of solving problems becomes a credo ('What would Dory do?'), and it's almost poetically funny when she herself adopts the credo. The movie, in the end, is about finding Dory. It’s about how the past, for her, isn't really so past. It's just the ability to remember life as we're living it, one moment at a time." -- Owen Gleiberman [Full review]

　　

EW

"Of course, there's never any real doubt that Dory will find her way back into the loving embrace of her parents' fins. Or that there will be laughs and stifled sniffles along the way. Still, one of the biggest and most pleasant surprises in a film with too few of them is just how resonant Dory will be for parents of kids with learning disabilities. To them, life can feel like a very lonely struggle where anxiety constantly reaches for you like a psychological undertow. If you squint hard enough, the film's message to these parents is, You're not alone. It takes an underwater village to raise a child (or a fish). Dory's failing memory may be a handicap, but it's also the key to her resilience. Is that an earth-shattering revelation? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, it's hard to argue with." -- Chris Nashawaty [Full review]

　　

USA Today

"It's strange to discuss realism in an animated movie with talking fish, yet the situations that Marlin and Co. got themselves into didn't seem that odd in the first movie. You could buy little sea creatures trying to find freedom by jumping out of a dentist's fish tank. But there is one sequence in Finding Dory that, while highly entertaining, comes right out of a Fast & Furious movie and rings as weirdly out of place.

　　Outside of Toy Story, Pixar hasn't found the right formula in its sequels to repeat the success of its original classics. Mark Finding Dory down as another that falls short of unforgettable." -- Brian Truitt [Full review]

　　

The Hollywood Reporter

"Certainly there's enough goofy, boisterous comedy produced by all these energetic characters to keep kids amused. But central to the film's shortcomings is the fact that Dory's mental handicap makes her, at prolonged exposure, a one-note character. Her opening line is, “Hi, I'm Dory. I suffer from short-term memory loss,” and it's impossible to count, at one viewing, how many times she repeats that, or something very close to it, over the course of ninety minutes and change. In your spare time, you're left to assess the discrepancy between the inevitability (in a kids' film) of Dory finding her parents and the outrageous rational odds against a fish finding her fish parents halfway across the globe. In Finding Nemo, the long-shot chance of the little guy being reunited with his dad didn't seem ridiculous because Stanton juggled his ever-more extreme narrative dilemmas with brilliant skill. Plus, that film actually admitted the existence of tragedy at the beginning, something the new one never does." -- Todd McCarthy [Full review]

　　

Forbes

"I rather liked what the film does with its lead character, offering a potent parable for raising a challenging child and/or being friends with that child while also highlighting the rewards. I wish the plotting was sharper and less episodic, and I wish the emotional highs were a little higher. But the film works as quality family entertainment, and it ends on a pretty high note of contemplative bliss. The pessimist might argue that I'm bending over backward to be fair to a merely okay sequel that shouldn't exist in the first place. But no matter why we got Finding Dory, the result does no harm." -- Scott Mendelson [Full review]