Just keep staring. Just keep staring. Just keep staring.

…aaaand, I’m blind.

Photos don’t do it justice, but this box of Finding Dory cereal is bright. I think the shiny holographic box design could even bring down planes if angled correctly in the sunlight.

Your move, TSA.

In fact, the distracting solar flare of this cereal box is the only reason I’m reviewing it at all; I was attracted to it in the grocery store like a moth to a flame. Or perhaps like a guppy to an angler fish. Or maybe even like a kid to one of those oil puddles that reflects neat rainbows.

I usually just sit back and make fun of generic oats and marshmallows movie tie-in cereals, but truth be told, I haven’t actually tried one in awhile. Maybe my laughter is unwarranted. Maybe there’s a tasty reason Kellogg’s has rehashed this formula time and time again.

So here’s your shot, Kellogg’s. Dazzle me with that Pixar magic.

I first tried to make sense of the games and puzzles on the back, but since the combination of cartoon fish and a psychedelic cardboard box is like a PowerPoint with neon yellow comic sans, I quickly and nauseatingly gave up.

I popped a handful of aspirin and popped a handful of cereal into my mouth.

I’m surprised to say that this cereal is quite different from the bootleg Lucky Charms I was expecting. Everything about the oat bits here are superior to Lucky’s airy and floury bits. Instead, Dory’s have a hearty, dense crunch (probably because of the impressive 3 grams of fiber per serving) and a lightly nutty flavor that’s kissed with a syrupy sweetness and a faint graham aftertaste.

It’s as if a Multi Grain Cheerio and a Honey Nut Cheerio had a beefy baby. These oat pieces are square though, so I suppose that would call for an episode of Cereal Jerry Springer.

The marshmallows, on the other hand, are a different story. First, let’s look at them. The box calls them “Dory, Nemo, and friends,” but these friends sure got the short end of the fishing pole.

While Nemo is faithfully rendered and Dory looks like Pac-Man auditioning for the Blue Man Group, the other two just kinda hang around like a fishy Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The white one appears to have been kidnapped from a bag of S’mores Goldfish, and I think the yellow fish is secretly one of those spongy magic animal grow capsules.

There is a healthy handful of them in each bowl, but their taste can’t compare to Lucky Charms marshmallows. Finding Dory marshmallows are limp, chewy, gritty, and not even particularly sweet or vanilla-y. They say “you are what you eat,” so these fish must have been snacking on packing peanuts.

Paired with the oats, what I’m left with is a decent toasted oats cereal that’s muddled by bursts of mediocre ‘mallow. Whereas milk makes Lucky Charms marshmallows even creamier and tasty, Dory’s just swell up like lame pufferfish.

I can only hope that one day, General Mills and Kellogg’s will sign a temporary truce, team up, and release the best gosh darn oats ‘n’ marbit cereal of all time. But for now…

…I’ll just have to “DIY Network” it.

The Bowl: Finding Dory Cereal

The Breakdown: Above average oat bits are weighed down by ho-hum fish marshmallows. And unfortunately in this cereal, there are plenty of fish in the sea.

The Bottom Line: 6 bowls of Steve WilkO’s out of 10

(Quick Nutrition Facts: 120 calories, 10 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein per 1 cup serving)