Welcome
: It has been exactly one month since I posted my first review of Mr.
Bees brilliant movie buzz.
What
a better way to celebrate my one month anniversary than to review the
sequel to the movie I first reviewed. Before I get into my review , I
am going to go a little bit off topic. I would like to congratulate
all of the Kennedy Center Honorees !
Now
back to the movie at hand .
BACKGROUND
Now
I would like to point out that for this movie, I could find few
behind the scenes facts. For some of this, I will be doing my
hypothesis of what actually happened. This movie was released on
December 13th 1994 and it was directed by Roy Allen Smith,
his first movie as a director.
Now
here is my hypothesis as to why this movie was made. The big guns at
universal noticed that the VHS and Laser Disk sales of The Land
Before Time were doing so well that they decided to make a sequel.
They also decided to make it Direct-to-Video because Disney was also
having a tremendous success with Direct-to-Video sequels. Roy Allen
Smith was hired to direct it and he decided to throw away the heavy
atmosphere from the first movie and make it a musical. This was
intended to attract the kids.
PLOT
This
movie starts off with an opening narration similar to the one in the
first movie. All through the movie the main characters: Littlefoot,
Cera, Ducky, Petrie, and Spike, are dealing with their parents who
are treating them like babies. There are two bad dinosaurs that want
eggs. I really shouldn't say two, considering that in the movie, only
one of them wants eggs and the other one wants to eat plants like all
the rest. They steal an egg from Ducky's nest and then high jinx
ensues and the bad guys drop the egg, but coincidentally the egg
rolls back into Ducky's nest. The kids, who are trying to recover the
egg from the bad guys, do not realize this, and they see an egg that
is very similar to the egg in Ducky's nest, but bigger, and keep
that. They think that this is Duckey's egg, but the egg hatches and
it turns out to be a baby sharp tooth. They named him Chomper. Now
the bad guys accuse them of stealing the egg. Littlefoot needs to
find out how to take care of a baby and then (spoiler alert! ),
Chomper gets into an active volcano looking for food. More high jinx
then ensues and we find out that the wall that separates the “Great
Valley” and the “Mysterious Beyond” has been knocked down. The
adults want to put the wall back up. Littlefoot runs off to go find
Chomper. There were grown up Sharpteeths in the “Great Valley”
and we find out that they are actually Chompers Parents. They seal up
the wall and everybody lives happily ever after!!
OPINION
First
off , I am going to tell you what I did like about the movie. The
title card is a vast improvement over the one in the previous movie
which just looks like it is part the beginning credits. ( If you
didn't know any better you would think that there is a man working on
the movie named Land Before Time). Some of the voice acting is very
good. Particularly Candace Hutson who does the voice of Cera and the
only voice actress that reprise her role from the first movie.
Heather
Hogan plays the voice for Ducky in this movie after Judith Barsi's
tragic death in 1988. She does a fair job as Ducky. The voice actors
who play the bad guys are very talented. Also, the actors who do the
voices of Grandma and Grandpa Longneck are good as well. I will even
tell you that they are the highlights of the movie.
Now
for the bad stuff. First off, the animation is bad, but granted this
is a Direct-To-Video movie and the budget for these are not the best
in the land. The bad guys have no motive. There is never an
explanation as to why they want the eggs although they are a type of
dinosaur that can only survive on eggs (The average person does not
know that ). Other strikes are that there is no continuity between
the two movies and there is no mention of Littlefoot's Mother. Also,
when they talk about the “Mysterious Beyond,” they act like they
have never been there before (Didn't they spend an entire movie in
there ?). The fact that the parent's treat them like babies is just
so stupid because the kids went without any adults for a couple of
days in the first movie. If my child went a couple of days without me
and found his way back to me, I would conclude that they could take
care of themselves. Mr Smith, “if you are reading this did you
even watch the first movie??”
Only
having one member of the original voice cast returning really hurts
this movie because the majority of the voice cast does not know how
to act!
In
regards to the soundtrack, I liked the fact that they included the
score from the first movie. However, the songs are simply bad.
I
am sorry to say this, but I am giving only 1 and 1/2 stars out of 5.
This movie currently has a 41% audience rating and no critics rating
on Rotten Tomatoes . For some stupid reason, it was nominated for an
Annie award, but it thankfully lost to ''The Gate To The Mind's
Eye''. Well that's it for today . Join me next time when I will give
a short review of 10 Robin William's movies.
By
Mr
Bee
copyright 2014 Mr. Bee Studio International All rights belong to Mr. Bee and webmaster Wesley M. and if anybody breaks this copyright they will have to spend ten years as my personal slave, and thanks for your understanding.
images courtesy of Comcast Corporation and ImmigrationProf Blog
images courtesy of Comcast Corporation and ImmigrationProf Blog
