Though it doesn’t fall to the low levels of the first “cheap-quels” to Disney classic films, but it doesn’t go down as the best either. You’ll be longing for the jazz of the original as the songs don’t really rise to being too memorable. However, if you’re a youngster you probably won’t have those complaints.
Following the events of the first Jungle Book (1967), Mowgli (Haley Joel Osment) is living in the man village with his new adoptive parents (John Rhys-Davies portrays the father) and new step-brother Ranjan (Conner Funk).
The girl who lured Mowgli into the village is Shanti (Mae Whitman) and the two have an adversarial relationship as she’s afraid of the jungle and he’s still missing his former home and thinks there’s no danger there. Baloo (John Goodman) pines to Bagherra (Bob Joles) how much he misses his cub, Mowgli, and Bagherra tries to unsuccessfully convince Baloo to stay away from the village.
One night Baloo sneaks into the village to visit Mowgli and the two traipse off into the jungle to relive old times. There’s also another visitor as Shere Khan (Tony Jay), Mowgli’s old enemy, is skulking around looking to avenge himself against the man cub. Shanti sees Baloo taking off with Mowgli and she thinks that he’s being kidnapped.
So she has to face her fear the jungle and try and “save” him, with Ranjan tagging along unbeknownst to her. Shanti might be right about her opinions of the jungle as her first encounter is with the snake Kaa (Jim Cummings) who tries to make a meal of her before Ranjan saves her. Now the two traverse other dangers to find Mowgli before Shere Khan makes a meal of him.
I’ll have to say that I’m in the middle on this one. Sure, there’s noting too memorable about this sequel to the Disney classic but it fares better than some of the others. The voice cast is decent enough but only a few of them come close to their classic counterparts. The late, great Tony Jay oozes the same sort of oily villainy that George Saunders imbued Shere Khan with and Jim Cummings and Bob Joles perform well as Kaa and Bagherra.
King Louie was supposed to make an appearance, but I believe the Louis Prima estate blocked the move. Haley Joel Osment was acceptable as Mowgli, but John Goodman doesn’t really come close to the fabulous work Phil Harris put into the original. Don’t get me wrong, he plays it well but I kept getting thrown out of the film whenever he spoke and thinking “hey that’s John Goodman.”
Perhaps even worse is the addition of a goofball vulture called Lucky (voiced by Phil Collins) to add some slapstick to the film for the kiddies. This second film also feels more like a remake since it basically covers the same plot of ground as the first film. It does add some new characters but they’re not memorable.
Jungle Book 2 is presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.66:1) and is enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features are divided into sections. First up are 9 minutes of deleted scenes with introductions by executive vice president Sharon Morrill and senior vice president, music Matt Walker.
The “Music and More” section contains Disney Song Selection which lets you jump to the songs, Sing with the Movie that puts captions on the songs, and some music videos (the 1 minute “Wild,” the 1 minute “Jungle Rhythm,” and the 1 minute “I Wanna Be Like You” by Smash Mouth).
The “Games and Activities” section has Mowgli’s Story Time Adventure and Mowgli’s Jungle Ruins Maze games. The “Backstage Disney” section has the a 3 minute synopsis of Jungle Book (1967) and the 14 minute “Legacy of the Jungle Book.”
Jungle Book 2 was probably uncalled for, but if you’re a young one then you’ll probably just watch along and not care. Animation buffs might be a bit offended that Disney, Inc. cashed in with another sequel but it can entertain if it doesn’t get under your skin.
The Jungle Book 2 (Special Edition) is now available at Amazon . As of yet, this version of the DVD is not available in the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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