Charlie 2

How could they take such a beautifully animated gem like Don Bluth's All Dogs go to Heaven and bastardize it with a charmless, cheesy, uninspired sequel. The haunting music and delightful characters are gone, now replaced with tacky animation and an unimaginative plot.

The Pros: Charlie Sheen is sometimes fun as Charlie, but he lacks the charming tough guy attitude that brought him to life by Burt Reynolds. I did particularly enjoy the songs "I will always be with you" and "It's too Heavenly here".

The Cons: There seems to be no connection between this and the original. In the beginning Charlie is chums with Carface, but wait a minute. Isn't this the same character who was responsible for Charlie's murder and kidnapped the sweet little orphan he loved? I guess that all changes in Heaven but why isn't Anne-Marie even mentioned? If Itchy makes it to Heaven, wouldn't Flo and Killer make it too? What is with Annabelle the whippet's voice? In the original it sounded feminine and charming and in the sequel it sounds like a whiny, bitchy, parrot. The new characters aren't all that great (except Sasha). And the animation is better compared to a generic Saturday morning cartoon. The constant cartoony "humor" is flat and unfunny and the "heart" just doesn't work when compare to the original, which had such a moving unsubtle touch that makes me cry every time.

All Dogs go to Heaven is one of my all-time favorite films. How Don Bluth allowed this sequel to be made is beyond me.

BOTTOM LINE: Not all sequels go to Heaven.

MovieAddict2007 wrote:

"Part of the advantage of Don Bluth moving away from Disney is that he didn't need to suffer their endless tirade of straight-to-video, poorly animated cash-in sequels."

How so? When Don Bluth left Disney in 1979 the Disney Co. was not making direct-to-video sequels, so that could hardly have been one of Don Bluth's reasons for leaving. The direct-to-video sequels (Return of Jafar) and the spin-off TV series like TailSpin (which used Disney's Jungle Book characters) didn't start until the Michael Eisner era. I'm not a fan of the direct-to-video sequels from Disney or these things like All Dogs Go To Heaven 2 or the seemingly never-ending Land Before Time sequels but let's keep the history of these things straight. Disney didn't make sequels until long after Don Bluth had departed from Disney.

A lot of kids I know liked the original "Dogs" movie.

They did NOT like this sequel.

I've seen both, and I don't have the advantage of youth, but....

I kinda liked it.

"Dogs 2" doesn't have the same setting as the original, and Sheen is a far cry from Reynolds as Charlie B. Barkin. But the songs are catchy, the animation is bright and Itchy was as bright as he ever was (DeLuise's voice was a welcome sound).

And the romance between Charlie and Sasha (Easton) was cute.

And this still didn't do very well. I guess the world just wasn't ready to see Burt vocally replaced so soon.

Six stars. Go buy it, and put it on Carface's tab.

This sequel is not as good as its predecessor; however, it is still a good animated movie with good songs.

First and perhaps foremost, I would like to remark that this goody-goody sequel really took away from the original ADGTH movie, with all its dark bittersweet sentimentality, its beautiful insights of the Afterlife,and its heavy undertone of the criminal underworld.Also, why must they characterize the cat as a demon? For certain children that come to mind that believe cats are evil, no-good animals out to serve witches and devils, this does not help. To cast the cat as an average villain is one thing. But to cast it as the Devil himself?! I mean, if the plot were turned around, would they cast the dog as the Devil? That point aside, I didn't care for Charlie Sheen as Charlie B. Barkin and Itchie's one liner role really didn't cut up. Annabelle lacks any spunk, as she had in the original. There are certain scenes and songs that touched me. Such as "I Will Always Be With You". And the end scene was sweet. I did approve of the Guardian Angel theme, while I didn't agree that Earth would be better than Heaven. 3 out 10!