killbill500

I came into the film with high expectations, especially as TV Week called it, "More moving than The Lion King". I'll start by saying this film has very complex animation, awful, inappropriate music, and hardly any dialogue.

This film doesn't develop the characters straight away, it does that over the course of the film. The characters are quite good; they're likable and actually have depth - so much so that I was actually saying "No!" when something bad was about to happen to them.

It's quite a serious film, too. It's not necessarily a kids' movie at all, which is what most people would associate it as. It didn't have a silly little love story to ruin it - it's one that most people of all ages will enjoy; although there's little to no humour to be found at all. But you know what, this is one of the few instances where the movie's actually better without humour.

The only negative things about it are the music, and the sudden plot turns. Firstly, the music. Oh dear, what on earth were they thinking? Absolutely awful, awful music that ruins the feel of every scene it represents.

Secondly, it can be a bit unbelievable; and not in a good way. Especially at the end, where the men are chasing and trying to kill the horse and the Indian, and all of a sudden, the horse defies science and gravity by jumping to the other side of two separate cliffs. Then all is forgiven and they suddenly "win back the land" as if they actually did something notable.

While it's certainly not perfect on many levels and for many reasons - it can't even compare to how moving The Lion King was, TV Week; I praise this film for being different to most other animated films - which doesn't mean it's better, but means there's something different to watch amongst all the animated films being released nowadays.

'The Fox and the Hound 2' is possibly the worst Disney sequel I've ever seen, seeing as it bears absolutely no resemblance to the original, whatsoever. It's as if the only thing they took from the original was the characters (and clearly left 'Big Mama' behind).

Having said that, I actually don't mind it that much. It's pretty fun, exciting, adventurous, and entertaining for a measly Direct-to-DVD sequel.

Now, on to the animation. While it's easily more visually pleasing than the original, this one's too....cartoony in comparison to the original. Even if the animation wasn't perfect in the original, The characters were extremely detailed there. In this film, they seem to have just grabbed the characters, made them cartoony for the kids, and placed them in this non-stop thrill-ride. But there's some beautiful use of bright colours in this film, which does look fantastic.

While Disney sequels are obviously, and automatically going to be inferior to the originals by default, I think this was a pretty good effort, if not way too child-based.

You know, this film actually has excellent animation with loads of potential, but every last strand of it's potential is wasted with the film's awful animation direction. It's Saturday morning cartoon standard; for both animation direction and cinematography.

In some scenes, specifically the one in which Iago gets pinned against the wall with a watermelon, the animation is disturbingly unrealistic and fake. The whole film showcases possibly the least realistic animation I've yet to see in a Disney film.

While the backgrounds are very detailed and expressive, some of the characters, even the main characters look noticeably wonky and off-model in some scenes, As for the humour, it's just plain silly for the most part; silly and childish, which instead of making me laugh, just left me rolling my eyes in contempt. In fact, there's basically nothing until the genie's appearance that seems to even try to be funny.

Most of the music is forgettable at best, and when a song is half right decent, what puts me off about it is that it doesn't sound Indian or Aladdin-esquire at all.

The only thing that stops me from either falling asleep, or turning of the TV screen, is the genie, which this time, is voiced by Dan Castellaneta (Homer Simpson). His voice-work, as an imitation of Williams', isn't particularly great, and I feel it was a bit of a let down, considering how versatile Dan's voice is in real life, and here, he just sounds like a mildly tweaked version of Homer Simpson. But in the end, it really doesn't matter, considering how many other things that absolutely bomb in this film.

This film is worth watching only for Dan's appearance; if you're not a fan of his work, and you are a fan of the original, then seriously, avoid this one if you don't particularly feel like ruining what the first one did to you. This film is only for the Aladdin diehards, and obsessive collectors; everyone else, if you think it might have a chance of living up to the original, think again.

On it's own, this film is awful. In comparison to the stunning original, it's not only terrible, but it's an insult to every thing that made the first film so special. The only way I would, and could ever like this film, is if no-one else on the entire planet liked it. Unfortunately, there are going to be people out there that do, so I see it as nothing more than a bad, pointless sequel that did not need to be made.