'Nemo' even better in 3-D

It's always the details that stand out whenever a classic film is converted to 3-D.

"Finding Nemo" pops off the screen -- from the shimmering sea surface, scratches on the lens of a diver's goggles, and smudge marks Nemo the clownfish makes when he mashes his face up against the glass wall of the aquarium that imprisons him.

The fish seem to float in between the surface of the screen and the deep blue underwater backgrounds of the South Pacific, an effect even more pronounced in the 3-D reissue of Pixar's undisputed masterpiece.

Perhaps it's not enough to warrant shelling out 3-D dollars to go see a movie that's long been one of the best-selling home videos. If you have kids, you already have this at home.

But "Finding Nemo," back in theaters nine years after its release, is a reminder that sometimes "instant" and "classic" can go together in a sentence describing a great movie.

And "Finding Nemo" is a great movie, one of the best animations for children ever made.

A timid and overprotective single-dad clownfish (Albert Brooks) over-protects his mildly disabled (shrunken fin) only son (voiced by Alexander Gould) to the point where Nemo foolishly rebels and is promptly snatched and tossed into the tank at an Australian dentist's office.

Dad flees the comfort of his reefside sea anemone home, and with the help of a seriously absent-minded blue tang named Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), sets out to find his son. And the kid, with the help of a tank full of mentors (Willem Dafoe, Brad Garrett, Allison Janney, Austin Pendleton), plots his escape to get back to dad.

It's a simple story, perfectly executed.