With four big critical and box-office hits in a row - "A Bug's Life," "Toy Story," "Toy Story 2" and "Monsters Inc." - Pixar/ Disney has just about the best track record of any outfit currently working in Hollywood and the Midas touch in computer-animation.

And their $80 million summer '03 offering, "Finding Nemo," is basically another winner, though it can't quite muster the kind of emotional tug that appeals to all generations and made several of the earlier Pixar films such instant classics.

It's the story of a clown fish named Marlin who lives in Australia's Great Barrier Reef and has recently lost his wife-fish to a barracuda, making him a somewhat overprotective father to the title character: a slightly handicapped but perky little boy fish named Nemo.

One day, in an act of preadolescent rebellion, little Nemo defiantly ventures too close to a scuba diver's boat, and is quickly nabbed by a Sydney dentist on an outing to look for colorful new specimens to add to his office aquarium.

From here, the script cross-cuts between the adventures of Marlin as he searches for his son with the help of a blue tang fish (with short-term memory loss) named Dory, and the plight of Nemo, as he tries to escape from his Stalag 17 of an aquarium.