Zog and the Flying Doctors

The first Zog film was excellent. Granted, the Zog book itself was better, but Zog & The Flyikg Doctors film is pretty bad.

The voices are poorly selected (the Lion, the King, the Mermaid, the Unicorn - they all just don't sit quite right).

The narration by Lenny Henry is awful (his "bang, crash, thumps" for example, have zero emphasis - he sounds bored like he just wants to get paid and go home).

There is too much fighting - they have embellished on the story and added in fight scenes that feel out of place, and not ideal for watching with a toddler.

All in all, pretty poor. Stick with the original - the story, and the execution of the film, are leagues above this.

Zog and the Flying Doctors is another book from Julia Donaldson given the animated treatment.

Princess Pearl is a doctor who decides to forsake royal duties and look after the needs of the animals.

She, Zog and Sir Gadabout fly about seek out animals in distress. A mermaid who has been sunburnt, a lion who has the flu and a unicorn with an extra horn. They are all dealt with by the trio.

However Princess Pearl's uncle, also a king, believes that a princess has no reason to be a doctor. He locks her up in the tower and give her more girly things to do.

Then the king falls ill and turns orange. All the doctors in the kingdom cannot cure him but the princess comes up with a remedy.

Another charming animation for all the family. It is a fairly simple story and is well animated. There is some subtext which plays around with the fairy tale tropes.

Essentially Zog 2, the direct continuation from the first movie/book.

Also accurately adapted, but with a bit of additional depth added that the first movie didn't have.

In order to avoid spoilers, the premise is effectily: A stubborn old fool who'd rather choose death than to believe in someone who he should be holding dear.

Zog & co. Solve a series of problems around the unnamed, unexplored world. These characters hardly speak. Their voices are fine, especially if you consider the thousands of voices in our reality.

A dragon and a knight having a fight seems hardly a problem, if anything, a knight is finally being a knight, and the dragon is... well, did you not see the first Zog and it's opening few minutes with what would be the idea of a dragon chomping a human in half?

Both movies have a pleasant musical score and theme.

Visually, it's the same, there's no loss.

I've seen the most Karen of complaints, though. We've got "too much fighting", someone didn't like the unicorn's horn operation (it's a unicorn, not a bicorn), and other such.

I can find myself rewatching both Zog stories in the future, simply because it's pleasant. I just wish they were a bit longer. Despite the title, it simply doesn't have enough Zog in it, while the first movie ended with the similar problem, not enough Zog, the title character. Still, we have to remember it was essentially done for free, a TV film for the holidays.

A story as warm as it can be, as heartfelt as it should be, as meaningful as it proves to be...

Enjoyed very much by both young and old!

So in the two years since we first met our brightly coloured dragon, he and the princess "Pearl" and their erstwhile knight "Gadabout" have taken to the skies to launch their original flying doctor service. It's quite a job they've undertaken as they have to treat a sunburnt mermaid, a unicorn with an unique problem and a lion with an even more annoying one. Needless to say, her uncle the King wants her to settle down and be more responsible in the kingdom she will one day rule, indeed he even locks her up in her room - but one day when he falls ill, she and her friends have to try to work their magic to save his life. It's not quite as much fun as the original, but it's still an amiably paced series of escapades that extol the virtues of kindness and teamwork whilst also showing that a degree of bloody mindedness does no harm, either! The animation itself is vivid and active and the story a family affair that makes you smile rather than laugh out loud. It's clearly not just a bee that has mind-baffling aerodynamics. How ever does "Zog" get into the sky?