Ferngully 2: The Magical Rescue

If a movie had to make a list of everything direct-to-video sequels always get wrong, “Ferngully 2: The Magical Rescue,” released in 1998, is probably that movie. MrEightThreeOne said in their review, “The animation quality is massively downgraded, which isn't a big surprise, but the bigger surprise is the massive art style shift -- the new animals for this movie look like every cheap kids' show animal I've ever seen, and they clash badly with the designs of the returning cast. Speaking of, not a single voice actor returns for this movie either, by far the most distracting example being Batty Koda who sounds nothing like Robin Williams at all, something I'd be more willing to cut slack on if Dan Castellanetta's Genie weren't a decent effort in the Aladdin sequel and TV show.” This movie essentially misses the entire point of the previous film and has nothing to do with environmental protection at all, instead going for a ridiculously basic search-and-rescue story that has been annoyingly done in so many kids’ movies. The story in this sequel is only going along because of how stupid everyone is, like how Pip, voiced by Digory Oaks, and everyone constantly ignore that their friends are in danger because they’re distracted by the carnival. MrEightThreeOne said, “The villains in this movie are generic beyond all belief, and pale in comparison to the fantastic villain Hexxus was in the prior movie. The pacing in this movie feels more at home with a 22-minute TV episode rather than a feature film, with special mention going to a wildfire scene that destroys a ton of their home yet it lasts all of maybe 20 seconds.” The music in this sequel does not match many scenes at all. Like in the climactic chase scene, the music is strangely quiet and would feel righter where the characters are sneaking around trying not to get caught.

MrEightThreeOne mentioned, “This movie is far from irredeemable. You could do much, much worse for bad kids' movies. There's nothing that's jaw-droppingly awful here and I can at least say despite the low animation budget, they did try their best.” However, at the same time, why go for this when there are so many better movies to watch, the first film included?

This film didn’t have much to go from but was just pointless. They don’t tell us any more about Ferngully or the characters. The characters get distracted by the attractions, but it’s not developed, and it just makes the characters look shallow. Overall, this is just forgettable, especially with none of the original voice actors return for this film, not even Robin Williams. He’s instead voiced by Matt K. Miller, who isn’t even funny, but just annoying. Don’t see this film, as it won’t keep anyone’s attention, especially with the characters having too much distraction and forgetting about the characters who are in danger and would be dead if they kept getting distracted. Avoid the sequel.

Now that we’ve gotten that superfluous sequel done with, stay tuned next week when we talk about a much better movie in “Animated Environmental Movie Month.” I apologize for the late posting. After work, I went to see my aunt, and I ended up being there longer than I thought I would be.