Of all the Disney sequels I've reviewed so far
Lady And The Tramp 2 seems to be the closest in spirit to the original.
Now that's not saying a ton seeing how I thought the original was only okay,
but to be fair, I think it was meant to be kinda a smaller movie anyway.
As soon as its sequel starts you'd swear you were in the exact same film:
the animation is really top notch
and looks eerily similar to the original.
I don't know why they throw all their effort into these Lady And The Tramp films -
they're just DOGS walking around, why would you make them look this good?
But they do, and it's beautiful to look at.
The story itself ranges from generic, to actually kinda okay,
but again, for a Lady And The Tramp movie, it's not like I'm expecting anything spectacular here.
The film takes place not even a year after the original:
Lady and the tramp still had puppies and they seem to be a happy family,
but one of them seems to get into a lot of trouble.
That being Scamp, voiced distractingly so by Scott Wolf.
Yeah, look at this thing, you'd expect a cute little kid voice to come out of it,
something high pitched.
But instead, what do we get?
*twenty year-old puberty voice*
"But I want to run wild, and free, like a REAL DOG!"
GOD does that Not fit.
*twenty year-old puberty voice*
"I go wherever I want, do whatever I please!"
You KNOW the only reason they went with this voice is so they can get a semi-celebrity in there
and it just doesn't work.
But thankfully the rest of the voice actors aren't that bad.
As he wants to run away from home and join a bunch of junkyard dogs
one of them, named Angel, played by Eliza Milano, takes him under her wing and shows him the ways of the outdoors.
But things get tricky when Scamp doesn't know where he belongs: in the home life or the outdoor life.
It looks even trickier when it looks like Angel wants a home life, and even had a home life, but has had her heart broken many times before,
AND even trickier when the leader of the junk yard dogs has it in for his father.
Yeeeaaahhh sounds like a semi-reversal of the first film and not really too interesting -
but, actually they did quite a bit with it.
The pacing in this film is a lot slower than other Disney sequels and it's very welcome.
Much like the original there's this real elegance and color to it:
the backgrounds are just glowing!
And when a character goes through something they don't just say a line and then run away:
they actually kinda sit there and let the moment sink in.
The songs are actually rather fitting too -
Okay, there's an occasional lame lyric here and there
but the style matches the time period perfectly.
There's even a Rag Time in it.
And for these types of songs they're actually done pretty well.
Does it all work? No.
There's definitely the clichés that you can see coming,
and certainly a groaner line here or there,
and, I really didn't get what age everybody was supposed to be.
I mean, okay, Scamp is suppose to be a puppy but they get an adult voicing him.
Well okay, maybe he's still a little kid,
but, Eliza Milano voices the other "maybe" puppy;
they don't really make it clear she's a puppy, maybe she's just a small dog,
but there's clearly a romance blooming between them.
So okay, maybe she is a puppy, but then she talks about how she's been in and out of five families.
FIVE FAMILIES?? You can't be that young and go through five families!
But okay, give them benefit of the doubt: maybe she is, maybe she is still a puppy.
The leader of the Junkyard dogs, CLEARLY AN ADULT, has the hots for her,
always calling her 'His Girl' -
How does this Work???
So yeah, little scenes like that and kinda a phoned-in climax
make it lame at some points.
But truth be told, I was actually kinda impressed with how much it felt like the original Lady And The Tramp:
They DO try to make you feel something, they DO show the dilemmas the characters are going through, they Do take the time for it.
I can't really say it's great cause I don't think the first film or this one were meant to be really great -
They're supposed to be small, elegant, pleasant little movies.
And okay there's definitely problems that hold me back from liking it as much as the first one -
- I mean the first one DID have a little more of an edge to it -
but I think if you're someone that actually wanted to see a sequel to Lady And The Tramp, this'll do you fine.
If this is a story you for some reason really wanted to see continued, I say check it out:
it might be an adequate spinoff to dig your paws into.