For once I was expecting total disappointment and got better than I ever would have hoped for. Yes, this is a "mid-quel," but once you've seen the (incredible) first you can sort of imagine where these events might fit in. This has its own climax and all, but the plot fits within the original's parameters. It might not make 100 sense, but to go back and do something like this is pretty tough. It's all right.

So, what's good about The Fox and the Hound 2? Much more than anyone expects. First, the obvious animation. It, and the scenery, are wonderful. Bright, bold, shiny, fresh colors, detailed and true-to-the-first backdrops. Very expressive characters who are just delightful to watch--the way the dogs move is fantastic and well done. As to the country music, well, I wasn't sure I'd like the accents--but I do. And even if you're not normally a fan, there is nothing to dislike about the movie's songs. Particularly "Good Doggie, No Bone." (Great song. Like "Streets of Gold," it's sung to a young animal to educate them about something [it's really about herself, and what she's learned the hard way about relationships and being 'at the top.'] And ain't that what life is, too, though? "It's all, 'Good doggie,' but no bone!") They're nicely done by stars from the heart of country music, as explained on the DVD bonus feature.

And the story? Surprisingly great too; good dialogue, witty and humorous bits, good character development. None, or very little of, the usual sequel hokeyness and cheese I'd anticipated. The story of the county fair and aspiring Singin' Strays band is actually very believable. There are so many highlights it's hard to remember them all, but the scene near the end, in which the group performs for a jolly talent scout outside a quaint, old-fashioned diner comes to mind for one. The setting just helps to make the story work; that little diner is so cute, and so perfect for the scene.

I'm still dismayed to see sneak peeks for Cinderella 3 and The Little Mermaid 3 on the DVD, but at least this movie gives me hope that somebody still may know what they're doing making these sequels. Then again, this movie was almost tailored directly to me. More than anything I am a sucker for singing and dancing dogs: show me a film centered around that, and you've got me. I like to imagine a world where everyone's a dog and there are musicians along the lines of the Singin' Strays anyway, but even without such a love for this type of thing, you can appreciate the movie. It stands well enough on its own. But I'm saving the best parts for last.

Yes, it's pretty original; far from perfect, of course, but I won't run down all of the weaker points because as with any sequel, there are many. However, they don't drag down the big picture. Tod and Copper are naturally your young and precious main characters, but Chief, Widow Tweed and Amos Slade haven't been left out--or ruined, either. Chief is especially well animated and a good source of humor (he also looks kinda like Tramp.) The one character, though, who in my opinion really makes the movie great--in fact she makes the movie--is Dixie. When I first saw her and Cash on the cover, my impression was: 'OMG! It's Dodger and Rita from 'Oliver and Company' redone!' Because Cash's bandanna HAS to be an homage to Dodger. And Dixie has that same sort of look as Rita--seriously, she's her cover-art twin--which is my favorite 'look' in the world and when I see such a character, it's instant Favorite.
Well, turns out Dixie is something like the country cousin of Sasha LaFleur, another sequel-starring performer and Rita-type whom it seems everyone else has also compared her with. But you can't forget to go back even further to Rita too. (They and the others like them are 'of the same breed,' so to speak--which if you know dogs, is very Saluki, which means Cash's potential pups would have in them the ability to hunt by both scent and sight! Hooray for hounds.)
A force to be reckoned with and of course the love interest of Cash, she's the most interesting character (and thanks to being in show business, the road is rough for her and Cash). She is also visually a wonderful character to watch. She steals every scene she's in and I'm glad she's such a central character. Her song is probably the best part of the film. In fact, this movie probably should have been a separate, Singin Strays-centric non-sequel. So to wrap up, this movie basically blew me away--two thumbs up just for stunning me.

EDIT: upgraded in line with my new policy that DTVs shouldn't be judged on the same scale as theatrical releases.

Well, here it is...

For the record this is the first DTV (or is it DTDVD, nowadays?) review which I've written under my new self-imposed reviewing rules...

Which are basically that I'm not going to rate a DTV as if it were a 100 million dollar cinematic release. And I'm not going to worry quite AS much about how it relates to the original cinematic release. IOW, I've never given 4 stars to a DTV. Has anyone? So I'm going to score it somewhat along the lines 'that was worth X stars FOR A DTV'. I've tussled with this ever since I started writing reviews, and I may go back and change some of my old ratings. Don't worry, though - there will always bel some things wretched enough to score 1 star.

And I'm afraid, despite this somewhat more liberal rating system, 'Fox and the Hound 2' still only gets 2.5 stars.

This midquel is set towards the start of the original movie (Tod and Copper are still very young). The raw essentials are that Copper gets seduced into performing with a troupe of singing carnival dogs (errr... yeah, ok, I'm not going to try to explain that), and becomes the third point in a peculiar love/jealousy triangle between the two main stars, Cash and Dixie, while at the same time estranging his friend Tod, who of course isn't a dog, and can't sing (I'll put this down in my notebook about foxes. Not only do they smell of coffee (true), but they can't sing (plausible). And in the end themes of loyalty and family become important. (To a certain extent I think Disney ripped off their own 'Lady and the Tramp II', but then they probably ripped that off something else)

Well there are some things which grate against the original: the first being that the original was a near-masterpiece, and this isn't. Widow Tweed and Amos also show flickerings of attraction which were clearly not there in the first film at this point. The whole story is kind of silly in a way which the first one wasn't, but doesn't really do any serious damage to the first and second halves of the original (in the way that 'Wolf Quest' tore up the ending of 'Balto', for instance).

The animation and art direction is fair, and that's about it. When I say 'fair', put it this way: it makes 'Bambi 2' look like a masterpiece (in fact B2 was pretty good, but not quite that good).

Ok, the new characters. Well the voice characterisations are decent enough. Patrick Swayze is unexpectedly good as Cash (I say 'unexpectedly' because I didn't think the guy could act at all). As has been noticed below, Dixie bears an unmistakable resemblance to Sasha from 'All Dogs go to Heaven 2 / The Series', but fortunately when you get over the fact that they both sing 'come-on' lyrics, they also have a lot NOT in common. Dixie's personality is completely different - inclined to vindictiveness, whereas Sasha was mature and sensible - and Sasha actually only sings one stage number, whereas singing is almost Dixie's raison d'etre.

So why doesn't this film fly, other than not being as good as the original? It's hard to put my finger on it. I could complain about the glaringly obtrusive CGI whenever anything mechanical appears, but that's not enough in itself. I think it's just too emotionally lightweight. The characters don't get under your skin. There is a moment in the original - if you've seen it, you probably know what I'm talking about - which is real lump in the throat stuff. There's nothing in here which even approaches that. And that raises an interesting question for me:

Who the hell are they aiming this at - a sequel to a film whose original viewers are probably in their mid 30's, and who nobody else has probably watched? Perhaps that's it: the film really has no demographic, and no producers who really care about the original.

It's really not that bad.

It's really not that good.

This movie is not smarter than a fifth grader.

Most of what I want to say has been said before, and given this movie only has three reviews (none of which were written by Lupercal), it really tells how very little there is to say about it.

The biggest problem with interquels like this is that you know things will work out in the end. And doubly so in this particular interquel: the writers took no risks with the characters, and went with a safe crisis-of-friendship story. Such a story doesn't fit with the original Fox and the Hound, where you had no idea whether the main characters would make it through safe and sound. The same impact isn't there.

The music was... better than I thought it would be. It was nice and country, and didn't rely on cheesy lyrics... most of the time. The addition of some real singing talent as the Singing Strays was a nice touch.

There was a lot more humour in this interquel than in most of the other animated sequels I've seen thus far, but most of the humour came from the kind of slapstick comedy they used mainly in movies like Robin Hood, back when it was more effectively utilized. And in a movie which ran barely 70 minutes, it seems to have been used mostly as filler anyway, to stretch the running time.

Certainly the younger generation will love the movie, as it comes complete with a cast of lovable characters, and the songs weren't horrible. But like the Land Before Time movies, you probably won't find yourself watching this movie more than once or twice at the very most.

I had to split the rating: as a stand-alone, if I had never seen the original, I would have found this a fun and enjoyable show. On the other hand, if I had rated it solely on its success as a sequel (mid-quel?), it tanked. So, it gets a middle-of-the-road rating.

The good stuff: fun with Tod and Copper: enjoyable new characters: slapsticky comedy: good songs. The peanut butter scene actually made me laugh.

The bad stuff: Out-of-midquelness and cheesiness. Amos Slade shows a soft side that would have made the original ornery cuss despise him as a total wimp. Disney can't resist glamorizing stuff--instead of another actual COUNTRY ANIMAL plot, it's all about becoming a star. (Okay, yeah, I know that it wasn't realistic to have an owl rescuing fox cubs in the first movie, but it was all sort of real-animal stuff...not country-star singing dogs riding ferris wheels and planning stardom.) The score and song music is totally a different 'setting' than the original movie. It was good, yes, but it helped destroy the continuity. TOD has to tell COPPER how a hounddog is supposed to track things down. (What the--??)

Anyway, as I said, if I didn't know the original so well and fondly, this one would have gotten a much better rating from me.

first things first this rubbish . The charectors were acting out of charector if you compare them to what they were like in the first one for example in fath 1 amos swears if he catches tod on his farm again he will shoot him and he does in fath 2 but basicly dosent do anything but a rubbish slapstic scene.

as for charector design hmmm dixie what an original name not and design i kept calling her sasha at first if you dont beleive me compare them you will see what i mean.

the songs were ok but just ok not rememerable

I know what you're thinking: A "Fox and the Hound 2? What are those people thinking? It'll destroy the original classic!

I also had those same feelings about it when I first heard about it a few months ago. The plot looks like crap and the characters just don't have that spark from the original, right?

Dead wrong.

**WARNING: Possible spoilers ahead!**

The Fox and the Hound 2 is a typical Disney "midquel" - a "sequel" that actually takes place inside of the actual original film; more like a side-story of sorts. Tod and Copper are still those roly-poly kids from the beginning of the original film, the best of friends. Of course, their friendship always gets them into trouble, most especially Copper, who is in training to become a hunting dog like his next-barrel neighbor, Chief. There's one problem: Copper is more full of fun than with wanting to learn to hunt and track (which obviously gets him on his master's (that gun-tootin' Amos Slade) bad side), and he thinks that he has nothing to make himself feel special.

Moving along . . . it seems that the county fair's in town and so is a melodious group of singing stray dogs called . . . The Singing Strays (talk about originality, Disney.), and their tail-wagging sound peaks Copper's curiosity (as does Tod's, but not so much).

And this is where the story hits a busy point: the interaction with the five members of the Strays (the serious leader, Cash; the diva, Dixie; the IMO older Copper-clones, Waylon and Floyd; and the old one, Granny Rose), the addition of Copper with his "show-stopping" performance, the arguments between Tod and Copper (and Dixie and Cash *cough*), and a lot of other things that make the film not only serious, but also a bit fun.

In the end, of course if you've seen the original "Fox and the Hound", you know that Tod and Copper's friendship is renewed.

No big surprises here. We've all seen it before. I did think the Dixie and Cash scenes were the most enjoyable in the film though . . . they were interesting characters with their own set of plans. Most of the other minor characters were okay, but I was shocked by the absence of one certain character:

There was no Big Mama! *weeps*

(I suppose this was a good thing, because . . . I really couldn't see anyplace in the film that she would have fit into! Maybe as a voice of guidance perhaps, but I still couldn't see anywhere to put her. I guess it was for the best - allowing the lead characters to realize their mistakes on their own and figuring out a way on their own to make things right again.)

So, after watching it once, I'll give it a 2.5 star rating. It's a nice little film that can stand on its own (it's much less violent than the original . . . at times, it's a little too happy.), but it also teaches a good lesson to children about friendship and a lesson about growing up and finding your true talent. The music was nice, even though I'm not a huge fan of Country music; it really set the mood for this adventure into a friendship between two of the most different, yet similar children.

The main downside was the animation. Not that it wasn't good . . . it was the bright colors in the background that bothered me from the first time I saw a teaser trailer for the film. The characer designs were a bit . . . okay. Tod looked odd though, while all of the other main characters in the film looked the same to me. I have to hand it to Disney though: They brought back a few things from the original to remind people that this is a "Fox and the Hound" midquel - the vehicles, the names of some things (like Widow Tweed's cow, Abigail, for example), and so on. This was the big point that made me happy.

Overall, this is at least worth a watch. Maybe two if you want a nice little movie for a rainy day. The characters are easy to relate to with each of their different situations that they go through, but in the end, it has a typical Disney ending: Everything just seems to go happily ever after.

Until we pick up where the original film kicks back in, of course.

2.5 stars. Don't be afraid to give this midquel a try!