This was a real treat for me. I’m watching a bunch of animated movies, and thought about skipping this one, but I’m glad I didn’t. Granted, the fact that I expected nothing from it probably helped, but still.
I can understand why people who love the first one would be put off, especially since Don Bluth wasn’t the animator on it, but the animation was still beyond solid for the time. It’s really smooth and seems to have a high frame rate- it reminds me of the MIckey Mouse short ‘Runaway Brain’, which has incredible animation.
It also has a pretty great soundtrack. “Dreams to Dream” is obviously the highlight, and that whole sequence is just beautiful, no qualifiers needed, and I didn’t find myself particularly disliking any of the songs (except maybe the one on the train), but even the somewhat more forgettable songs are paired with the great animation. Just look at this scene, for example:
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As for the story, well, there are probably too many plot threads (though I’ve seen much worse), and there’s nothing I would necessarily take away from the movie, but I think that it could’ve stood to be a little longer. Also, I get some of the criticism about it being less dark than the original.
The Tanya subplot was just great for me, and I would’ve loved to have seen more of it with her, Cat R. Waul and Miss Kitty. Tanya was basically a nothing character in the first movie aside from her duet with Fievel, and I really liked what they did with her. Speaking of Cat R. Waul, he was a pretty good villain, and John Cleese did a good job, but they had the perfect setup for him to redeem himself over his love for Tanya’s voice that they didn’t go with. He could’ve easily realized that mice might have more value than just as food, and then maybe the other cats could’ve turned on him or something. At least he didn’t want to kill Tanya in the climax, but still.
Anyway, I’ll post a couple random screenshots from it now.
