Here's why everyone should see Finding Dory. Yes, even grown ups.

She’s the little blue fish with a heart of gold and terrible short-term memory. It’s been 13 years since we first met Dory in Pixar’s Finding Nemo and while she may have forgotten her big screen debut, we certainly haven’t forgotten her.

Finding Dory has finally swum into cinemas and was expected to gross US$115 million in its opening weekend, according to Entertainment Weekly. 

Pfft.

How about US$136.2 million in the US and an estimated US$50 million internationally — a the total of more than US$186.2 million.

In case you missed it… that’s a lot of money.

Three cheers for Dory! Source: Pixar Post

In fact, it's the highest net opening for an animated film in history, knocking Shrek the Third (at US$121.6 million) off its pedestal. Finding Dory also almost doubled it's predecessor Finding Nemo, which grossed US$70.3 million on its opening weekend.

So, is it worth the $13 ($20, let's be real) and 100 minutes of quiet, happy children? According to the people who made it over the weekend, YES.

Anyone who worried the film might not live up to the first, can happily put their minds at ease. While it's not quite the light-hearted romp the original was, the slightly darker narrative serves to make you more invested in the characters you love and make the funny bits seem that much funnier.

Just try and resist this lil face:

Of course it's a children's movie with no shortage of slapstick for the little ones, but in the vein of Pixar's previous efforts Up and Inside Out, it can also reduce a seemingly well-adjusted grown up to a blubbering fool in mere moments.

Watch the trailer here:

Trying to keep this as spoiler free as possible, the film follows Dory on her journey to find her parents at a marine institute in California. It's a little circular, but it works.

Finding Dory also deals beautifully with themes of diversity and tolerance, celebrating Dory for her unique way of looking at the world.

As Marcy Cook writes for The Mary Sue:

I’ve not seen a kids’ movie that is so overtly positive towards disabled characters as Finding Dory is and I love it. All the new characters inside the marine rescue centre ... have some form of disability.

The new characters include hypochondriac 'Septopus' Hank, sea lions and Rudder, Fluke and Gerald, a near-sighted whale shark named Destiny, Bailey the beluga whale with the the broken sonar and Becky the bird who's a little bit mad.

Here's what social media had to say:

If you weren't one of the millions of people who saw it in it's first weekend, we'd recommend clearly your schedule to see it in its second.