What is wrong with you people? As far as I'm concerned, this film and the original film are two totally and completely different things, and I love both of them (I am not one to compare). The animation was excellant, and fluid and the backgrounds were more solid; The songs are alright, and some are easy to remember (well one to me that is).

I love the movie opening, when Mowgli was telling his new family and new best friend, Shanti, about his former life in the jungle through a shadow puppet show. As he gets to the part where he fought Shere Khan, the ferocious tiger, Ranjan decides to put his own twist on the story and in doing so, manages to destroy the set and embarrass Shanti in the process. Ranjan’s comment that, “Shanti blinked her big, beautiful, brown eyes at you. And you follow her into our village,” prompts Shanti to turn red and deny she did anything of the sort. This prompts a little argument between Mowgli and Shanti, forcing Mowgli’s father to break it up by revealing that his wife used the same trick on him. And also, my favorite musical sequence is when Mowgli and the village kids sang "Jungle Rythmn."

"You can take a boy out of the jungle, but you can't take the jungle out of the boy . . ." (I do believe that was the line from the film)

I wished they didn't make a movie that proved that quote . . . *sigh* Thank goodness I only watched this movie for a dollar . . . because that's all it's worth.

The Jungle Book 2 follows the recent slew of old Disney movies from within the past fifty years that has been given a sequel: Peter Pan with "Return to Neverland", Lady and the Tramp with "Scamp's Adventure" and the Fox and the Hound with "F&tH 2". However, like "Neverland," JB2 recieved a moment of theater showings . . . but they weren't necessary - a DTV release would have been better for this type of film.

The plot story is as simplistic as it can get: Mowgli the man-cub from the original film has been living in the man-village for some time (although I don't believe they mentioned exactly how long, but it doesn't seem to be too long anyway; no characters have physically changed yet . . . so I'm guessing it's been less than a year, tops), but there's some part of him that longs to return to the jungle that he had called his home for the first ten years of his life. Of course, his adoptive father and the father of Shanti (AKA the singing girl from the original's end) and her baby brother Ranjan (whose existance in this film was completely pointless) refuses him to leave the safety of the village. Like a typical rebellious child, Mowgli runs away, thanks to his old papa bear, Baloo; curiously, Shanti and Ranjan follow him into the jungle, hoping to bring Mowgli back . . . but as usual, more pointless stuff ensues.

The plot was thin like paper, but it was a tiny improvement from the not-much storyline of the original. The returning characters didn't bring back much, but the new characters of Shanti and Ranjan were . . . less than that. Shanti, originally the adorable temptress that lures Mowgli out of the jungle, becomes this weak, trademark girl who shows herself as strong, but is actually a desperate child that always needs rescuing. I think you could say I hated her character. However, I hated Ranjan the most. GAH, what's up with adding little babies to make a story more interesting? Ranjan = not necessary.

The voice acting . . . ugh. Sure, they tried to hire people that could continue the same voices as the original, but it was a total failure. John Goodman as Baloo = UGH. It just wasn't Old Papa Bear anymore, seriously. IMO, nobody can be Baloo except for Phil Harris (May he rest in peace), so that was a letdown. The other major returning cast wasn't too bad in my opinion, mainly Mowgli and Kaa (which I thought was okay). I will have to agree with Lupercal and say that Shere Khan really did sound the part, unlike many of the others. And Shanti sounded nothing like the girl from the original; she sounded more like the stuck-up brat she is shown to be in the sequel.

The animation was fluid, I will admit, and the backgrounds were more solid than sketchy. The songs . . . well, what else can I say but the fact that I knew they were going to be horrible? The remake of classic songs . . . it didn't help sadly, and the new songs were added in pointlessly (maybe except to intrigue the short attention spans of younger children).

In conclusion, I'd stick with the original film over this. Sure, JB2 is better animated, but despite the lack of basic story, the first one in this case is best.

To close things, I will end by saying that although the final choice that Moowgli has to make remains the same, I will agree again with Lupercal on the whole "closure" thing.

My rating: 1.5 stars. Watch it once, then burn it (unless it's a rental); Just don't buy it.

Based on reviews I'd read, I came to this one expecting it to be awful. It wasn't. It just wasn't very good, either.

When I re-watched the original Disney Jungle Book to review it here, I was a bit dismayed to find what I remembered as an almost-classic was actually a meandering, visually weak mess, held together by some good songs and a few strong characters. There was really very little story. Characters just wandered around and met each other until the film ended, and that ending was pretty unsatisfactory, in my opinion (See my review of Jungle Book).

Whether this was a curse or a blessing for JB2, I'm not sure. On the one hand it wouldn't have to be that great to better the original. On the other hand, how many sequels have ever surpassed their predecessors?

Mowgli rejoins Baloo in the jungle, after getting annoyed with his adoptive family in the human village, but the girl who initially drew him to the village comes looking for him (complete with annoying baby brother). Shere Kahn is out to avenge himself because of the embarressment foisted on him in the original movie. So eventually Mowgli has to make a decision between jungle and village. Again.

This isn't a strong plot, but to be fair, it's not much weaker than the original story really.

Ok, so how does the sequel rack up against the parent?

There is one thing in its favour. In my review of the original Jungle Book I mentioned it was a shame that the jungle was so sketchily, anemically drawn - a sure sign of Disney's plummetting budgets and laid-off staff at the time. Fortunately in 2003 you can make an animated film look decent without spending a fortune, and JB2's one major strong point is that it looks so much better than the original. Disney sequels can vary enormously in animation and art quality, but this is near the top of the pile, with a look that probably betters some of their feature films of the 60's and 70's, and is similar to something like, say, 'The Rescuers Downunder'. Some may find this bright pallette of colours at odds with their memory of the original, which I suppose has a character all its own, but for my money Disney didn't let themselves down visually. It may not have a lot of style, but it definately doesn't look cheap. A couple of characters, mainly Bagheera and Baloo, look a little off model, but not so much that it's a big deal, really.

Unfortunately that's about the only thing this movie has going for it, and when we get to the complaints department it's a bit easier to find things to talk about.

Firstly the voice acting was a fairly substantial disappointment. John Goodman just doesn't really evoke the original Baloo. Jim Cummings fails at the (admittedly difficult) job of recreating Sterling Holloway's Kaa. Haley Joel Osment is just your typical production line American accented kid-voice as Mowgli. The only actor who acquits himself with distinction is Tony Jay, who is excellant as Shere Kahn (though he probably rehearsed by listening to Jeremy Irons in 'Lion King')

The characterisation of the major characters is weak - this is more the writers' fault than the actors. There is only a token effort at the to-and-fro between Baloo and Bagheera, and Baloo himself just isn't anywhere near as memorable a character this time around. Given that neither movie had strong stories, and the original relied heavily on its characters, this is a big minus.

Other characters appear for no real reason. The vultures, who were (inexplicably) a parody of The Beatles in the first movie are back, and their northern British accents make even less sense now. Similarly the Elephants appear for no reason at all. This is hardly surprising, since they had no reason for being in the original either.

Musically the movie relies on reworkings of several of the songs from the first movie (obviously realising where one of the first film's real strengths was), with one or two new ones which aren't much good.

King Louie is absent, though we get a revamped version of his song in the closing credits, but otherwise the old gang is here, going through a movie which, at its end, really just reaches the same jungle vs civilisation decision as the first movie.

This might be where JB2 redeems itself slightly, though. I complained that the ending of the first movie was disappointing, undercut much of what had been developed during the movie between Baloo and Mowgli, and lacked 'closure'. This time around I could live more easily with the ending. In fact you could say that it managed to close that feeling of incompleteness from the first film.

Still, that's not an awful lot to hang the film on. It has that, and its nice visuals, but not a lot else.

This film actually got a limited cinematic release, so it's not strictly a DTV. For that reason I held it to a slightly higher standard, and can't really give it more than 2 stars, though it's by no means a disaster.