aileencorcoran
"All Dogs go to Heaven" (Bluth, 1989, MGM/UA) is one of my favourite animated films of all time. Bluth is a genius, already kicking all kinds of balls in the animation genre before Disney did. I love Disney, but Bluth has some BIG cahones; dogs drinking, gambling and double-crossing each other, rats made super intelligent by animal testing, a young orphaned dinosaur leading his friends to Utopia while grieving the death of his mother. Heck, even "Anastasia" (a film I love by the way), took risks for just existing, and that was Bluth's attempt at being Disney! Yet, it is not only Disney that has suffered the rath of the unneeded sequel. 90% of Bluth's movies have had sequels, TV shows or both adapted from them, ALL without his input. Except for "Bartok: The Magnificent." "The Land Before Time" is the most known example, with 12 sequels and a show, and another sequel coming riding on the tailcoat of "Jurassic World." Many people of the 80s and 90s are aware of the "American Tail" franchise. Ditto "Secret of NIMH 2." Then there's the "All Dogs go to Heaven" franchise.OK, most people know there's a sequel, but there was also an Emmy winning show and TV movie. Also, a really fun PC game. Judge me.Why? Why do Bluth movies get exploited like this? I mean, I love Bluth and his work, but his movies weren't critical babies until "Anastasia" came along. I mean, they were well received, but made little money EXCEPT on home video... oh.ADGTH was one of the highest earning home video releases at the time, so it makes sense that somebody would take this unique little gem and milk all of its heavenly cloud juice. However, is the sequel, appropriately titled "All Dogs go to Heaven 2," with "Charlie's New Adventure" added in some cases, really bad? In my opinion... no. It's OK. Not great, but watchable.The story starts off in Heaven where we see Carface (Ernest Borginine) having a shady phone conversation, before heading off to the Guardian Angel crowning thingy for perfect angels. Here we see Charlie (Charlie Sheen), the lovable rogue who redeemed himself by putting a little girl's life before his own. In a clever allusion to the song "Let Me Be Surprised," Charlie exclaims he's bored with Heaven. When his best friend, Itchy (Dom DeLuise) arrives in the afterlife, he bemoans his boring angelic life. So it makes perfect sense when Gabriel's Horn falls from Heaven, that he (and a reluctant Itchy) volunteer to retrieve it.So after once again conning the Heavenly Whippet, who now has a name and is stupid as heck (Bebe Neuwirth), Charlie and Itchy are sent to Earth as ghosts to find the Horn, which has fallen because Carface, who for some reason got a medal for being top notch angel earlier, made a deal with devil-cat Red (George Hearn), who wants the Horn to open the Pearly Gates so he can capture all of Heaven's dogs and lock them in Alcatraz so he can make Heaven Hell, I guess? Charlie and Itchy end up at a club where Charlie is smitten with smexy Irish Setter, Sasha LeFlur (Sheena Easton). Being the Casanova that he is, Charlie attempts to put the moves on her, only he can't, because he's a ghost. So Charlie and Itchy meet Carface, who they don't know is still evil, find out he got a life collar from a friend, which, well, makes him alive. Cool concept. Charlie, despite Itchy's reservations, goes to this friend, gets them both a collar, and goes to swoon over Sasha, before the collar's power wears out the next day. Of course, the friend is Red disguised as a dog, who is going to use the collar to control Charlie into leading him to the Horn. Oh, and the Horn is forgotten... for now.As it turns out, Sasha is not interested in Shepherds and is looking after a runaway boy named David (Adam Wylie), who is feeling understandably gypped because his dad and stepmom are having a baby. So he runs off to become a magician. David thinks Charlie is his guardian angel, so Charlie, in order to impress his new boo, plays along. So in between looking for the Horn, helping the kid do magic tricks and getting him back home, defeating the evil devil cat thing and falling in love, plenty of stuff goes down.It's all entertaining enough, the acting and music are good, pretty damn good actually. The animation isn't as polished as the original, but it's serviceable for a sequel, despite the NUMEROUS errors. Carface is now a pansy, which sucks, but Red is fun enough. Itchy is still funny. Even though Sheen can't replace a role literally made for Burt Reynolds in mind, he does a good job. The story isn't too bad either. But why, why is it set in 1996 San Francisco when the original was set on the brink of WWII in New Orleans? How did Itchy live that long? Where's Anne Marie? (I get that little Judith Barsi was murdered before the original film was released, so I guess that was a nod of respect for her). Why does the film exist other than to make money? Why does Charlie trust Carface when he MURDERED HIM IN THE FIRST MOVIE???!!!! The original had a passion quite akin to The Lion King; yeah it was risqué but we have a story to tell and God damn you if you don't like it! ADGTH 2 is harmless enough and moderately entertaining, but when compared to the gritty classic like the original it's based on, it's like comparing wet kibble to dry. This sequel ain't Heavenly, but it isn't Hell. It resides in Limbo, and that's fine too.6/10.
TheLittleSongbird
I do like the original, despite one or two flaws. I did feel it was a little too dark for children, but it was beautifully animated and moving. This sequel is definitely inferior in comparison, but there were a few redeeming merits. The animation is not very good, there were a number of colour changes and very flat backgrounds, and I felt that the animation on Red was a bit too frightening for children. The songs were very pleasant, especially I will always be with you, but not memorable. Then again, neither were most of the songs in the original. I did like the singing voice of Charlie, provided by Jesse Conti, not so much Charlie Sheen speaking-it just wasn't Charlie. Also Sheena Easton was lovely as Sasha; if you want to know a little more about her, she sang "A Dream Worth Keeping"(FernGully) and "Now and Forever" with Barry Manilow.(Pebble and the Penguin, which I like more than this to be honest)I loved Mark Watters' incidental music too. I liked the character David, but I found Anne Marie a lot more likable, I cannot watch the end of the first film without getting teary-eyed. Likewise with Carface, Vic Tayback was definitely better, but Ernest Borgnine did a very good job with the voicing I felt, but Carface lacked the calculating manipulation that made him so memorable in the original. Bebe Neuwirth's Annabelle did little for me too, I preferred Melba Moore's angelic interpretation. Now another flaw, and the main flaw, was the story. It was a good idea, with some neat subplots, but it was told way too fast. The studio should have focused on accuracy and detail rather than piling on rushed subplot and another. Now for the main villain Red, a bit too frightening for my liking, but I liked his song, with the Spanish flamenco like rhythms. George Hearn did more than adequately with the voicing,very menacing at times like in his song, but I felt he was out of character. I wouldn't initially associate Hearn with villainous roles. A more inspired choice would have been Tim Curry, as long as they didn't make him do a phony accent that they tend to burden him with. The script wasn't bad, but it did need a lot more work, whereas Borgnine and Dom DeLuise provided the laughs, Sheen and Easton were a little less convincing. In conclusion, a disappointing sequel to one of the more memorable Don Bluth movies, but it is not as bad as the Secret of NIMH sequel, which was so awful I didn't know what to say. 6/10 Bethany Cox
vip_ebriega
My Take: Harmless yet childishly corny. Calling it a family movie is an overstatement.This sequel to Don Bluth's anti-Disney fable ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN is appealing but weak. The animation, when compared to it's admittedly better predecessors are colorful but falls short of the product they've come to expect. Combined with weak musical numbers (even with Sheena Easton lending her vocals) and even weaker characters and a lack of a better story results in a lively but completely forgettable fluff.A popular cats-list of voice actors including Charlie Sheen, Ernest Borgnine, Sheena Easton, Dom DeLuise and Bebe Neuwirth team up to provide a rather appealing star power to this weakling of an animated adventure. After the legendary Gabriel's Horn, which unlocks the doors to Heaven's Gate, is stolen, Charlie Barkin (voiced by Sheen) and his buddy Ithcy (voiced by DeLuise) go back to earth to retrieve it, where they also follow old "buddy" Carface (voiced by Borgnine), who happens to work for the evil cat wizard named Reginald (voiced by Tony Jay), who wants the Horn for himself.Two sub-plots are provided, but either one doesn't really help much at all. One includes a romance that goes on between Charlie and an Irish Setter singer (voiced by Easton), and the other, concerns the dogs helping a little runaway boy named David. The story is fairly weak, even considering the standards of weak non-Disney effort. Bluth will most likely find his way as a Disney successor, but he has hardly succeeds here. Even if he has a way of entertaining kids, Bluth has yet to discover the trappings to appeal adults. The result is a film that will appealing to the kids. Adults should stick to something else.Rating: **1/2 out of 5.
