Review of The Jungle Book 2 (2003) by Electronick — 20 Apr 2016

Due to the relevancy of the recent remake, I decided to pay a retrospective to the original classic from 1967. Unfortunately since it is not available for review, I am stuck reviewing the sequel. This was made during the time when Disney was in clear financial ruin so they had to make many direct-to-DVD and Video sequels to get a profit for their box office performances.

This sequel unfortunately reflects the quality of most of these sequels though. It is a shame because some effort was put into the production side of things. The animation is bright and colorful with an attempt to put some attention to detail.

The voice talents also try to add life to the performances. John Goodman, Tony Jay, Jim Cummings, and Haley Joel Osmond do an admirable job at replacing the original voice cast. Unfortunately their talents are wasted in a script that has no passion behind it.

Granted the opening title sequence was creative with the shadow puppet animation but no other bits of the film follow that line of creativity. On top of that, the new characters that has been introduced are either annoying or inconsequential to the plot.

The new musical numbers are also generic. Granted this film is inoffensive to the younger children watching this but they are better off sticking to the original.