I've been watching Curious George since I was in preschool. But until tonight, I had only seen a snippet of the animated movie's second sequel, Back to the Jungle. And sad to say, it's undoubtedly the low point of the movie series. Perhaps it's fate that the day this was released, my mom, brother and I were racing home to avoid a tornado.
This time, a trip to space ends with George crashing in the jungles of central Africa, where he befriends the local animals. His friend, Ted the man with the Yellow Hat, sets out to look for him. However, when the two are reunited, the adventure is still not over... they must install an important device into an antenna tower that will help save the jungles from flooding.
Now, let me address the problems with the characters in this movie. In this movie, Ted and George are LITERALLY the only two characters from the first and second movies, OR the TV series, to return. Gone are the Bloomsberrys, Maggie, Clovis and literally everyone else. It's a shame, too, because in the second movie, Ted and Maggie's relationship seemed like it was really starting to take off. In addition, Ted is at his least likeable and charming in this movie. Also, the new characters, Hal Houston, Tech Andrew and Dr. Kulinda, aren't engaging.
In addition, the writing is pretty bad. This movie feels so unconnected to the two previous movies, AND to the TV series, that it doesn't feel like a continuance of the movie series or a finale to the TV series. And much like Frosty Returns, this movie tries to shoehorn in heavy-handed environmental messages that don't work at all. There's a little good humor here and there, but on the whole, this entire movie feels like one big non-sequitur.
And the animation is quite a downgrade from the previous movies. It looks pretty stiff and rigid, the characters don't mesh as well with the backgrounds, there's a lot of cheap CGI that clashes with everything else. In fact, it even looks bad compared to the TV series! You know it's a problem when a movie looks inferior to a TV series.
However, the voice-acting is still good. Jeff Bennett returns to his role as Ted, and as usual, he does an impeccable job. Frank Welker assumes his role as George, and he's still got his touch with animal noises. This movie also brings in some big-name celebrities to voice some of the new characters, which is impressive for a DTV sequel. John Goodman is great as Houston. Angela Bassett is also good as Kulinda.
And lastly, the music. Hector Pereira, who scored the previous films, returned to score this one, and once again, he did a fine job, even though, much like the first sequel, he couldn't use a full orchestra like the original, for budget reasons. And the songs were written by Nick Nolan, who also did the music for the TV series, further confirming this movie was meant as BOTH a movie series continuance and a TV series finale, despite being neither. However, while the songs aren't terrible, they're mainly just forgettable.
Everything considered, Curious George 3: Back to the Jungle, despite good voice-acting, some good humor and a good score, is quite a nosedive in quality from the previous two movies, and even the TV series. Only for the most exceptionally passionate of Curious George fans.
