The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure (1994)

Overrated

From my favorite movies..

Admirable film.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

I deny the existence of this horrible direct-to-video movie, so please DO NOT WATCH IT AT ALL because it'll only ruin your memory of other Land Before Time movies such as the original. I first heard of this movie when I was a kid, and whenever I would watch it I would always turn it off in the middle of the movie because I was bored and crying about this bad film. However, I was able to watch this whole movie when I was in high school a couple of times because I was then old enough to appreciate the film for the characters and story line of when they have to save an egg from being stolen by two greedy egg thieves, Ozzy and Strut who are dreadful and lousy villains.I'm in college right now, and all I can say about this Land Before Time sequel is that in every aspect, IT SUCKS! The songs are really cheesy and give me headaches such as "Peaceful Valley" and of course "Eggs". Not to mention the animation is ugly and all the voice acting is also really dreadful and painful, and this is definitely a movie that I believe should be extinct.Pass on this sequel, and if you want to watch a Land Before Time film other than the original, go with either #6 "The Secret of Saurus Rock" or #7 "The Stone of Cold Fire". If you watch those two Land Before Time sequels closely, you'll notice that the theme to those movies is a big resemblance of that from Hayao Miyazaki's Japanese anime masterpiece, "Laputa: Castle in the Sky".To summarize my review, THIS MOVIE IS BAD so pretend it doesn't exist.

The first of a dozen or so sequels, we see Littlefoot and friends attempt to chase off two egg-snatching dinosaurs and, while they did recover the egg near the valley's edge, they inadvertently created an opening and allowed two Sharptooths (T-Rexes) to sneak inside, threatening to disrupt the valley's peaceful way of life.Though the animation is good and the voice-over talents weren't bad, the film overall is pretty dull. The story doesn't capture the exciting adventures, tales of friendship, heartfelt drama and courage found in the original movie. Instead, what we have is a bunch of kid dinosaurs running around trying to save the day in a very amateurish way - almost like a typical preteen TV series episode with no real significance. And, the filmmakers decided to add songs in the movie - songs that will make you cringe. It really makes the film more childish and makes it a huge departure from the more touching themes of the previous film.I know this is a children's movie, but coming off as a sequel to its heartfelt prequel, I would have expected something more. I can only imagine what the following direct-to-video sequels are like.This film is probably fine for the little kids to watch; all others, stick with the original instead.Grade D-

If the kids liked the first film, then they will like the straight to video sequel. Personally I found it corny in places, but it does have an interesting story. The dinosaurs have made it to The Great Valley and are living there with their parents, Littlefoot by the way is living with his grandparents. The Valley has now got two dinosaurs stealing eggs from nests, one egg belonging to a Sharp Tooth. This Sharp Tooth, Chomper, is found by Littlefoot and he is trying to make him a nice T-Rex to be a friend to the other friends. The Sharp Tooths obviously get in the Valley and, chase out the egg thieves and the good dinosaurs block their entry. Kids will like it, I'm not sure I'd want to see it again. Adequate!

Alright, so the original was a little on the cute side, but it had a sense of wonder, of youthful innocence and to cut a long story short was a moving tale of love, friendship and courage.However, Part 2 is no more than a Disney-style cartoon, cute and twee through-and-through. There's no real sense of awe or danger - it's more like a day in the life of a young dinosaur. Any kind of reality is crushed by the unwise inclusion of some insufferably bad songs. There is a cute baby T-Rex, but his parents lack the presence of the T-Rex in the first film. Other hazards include two egg-stealing Struthiomimids who, in the tradition of the most melodramatic cartoon villains, have ex-public schoolboy accents. Very silly.There are moments when the film starts showing promise - the swamp scene, the journey into the Mysterious Beyond, but overall it's just a let-down. See the original instead, and if you've seen it then go straight to Part 3 of this series. Only undemanding kids will find anything of interest in this harmless, twee film.