Disneytoons review: The Little Mermaid 2: Return to the Sea

DisneyToons 14th film

http://freedisneycartoon.blogspot.ca/2013/07/little-mermaid-2-2000-watch-online.html

My opinion right after watching movie

My opinion right after watching the film is that, ….. it is very underwhelming, and there is not much creativity put into it. I watched this film more as a child than I did The Little Mermaid, but I now realize how pathetically lazy this film is.

Production

There is no info on the production of this film.

Story

The story starts with Ariel (Jodi Benson) singing to her newborn daughter Melody (Tara Strong), as her and Eric (Rob Paulsen) prepare to celebrate her birth on a ship…… Why in the hell would you have a party for a baby on a boat? So everyone from the sea soon come to the boat to see Melody. Everyone is singing about their excitement, and King Triton (Kenneth Mars) shows up to give his granddaughter his locket, to remind her that she is a part of the sea.

Apparently Ursula had a sister that popped out of nowhere, named Morgana (Pat Carroll), who takes Melody, and interrupts the party. Sigh, they could not have come up with a more original and better villain? So Eric takes the baby back, and Morgana makes a threat, causing Triton to demand everyone to find her.

Since Ariel is not the rebellious brat she was in the last film, she tells Triton that Melody needs to be away from Morgana; thereby keeping her away from the sea.

We then skip 12 years, and it is Melody’s birthday, but she was in the sea, and is too careless to care about her responsibilities. *Eye roll* Are you fucking kidding me? Are we REALLY going to repeat this character arc again? It was annoying with Ariel, and it is annoying with Melody. During the process, Morgana is trying to make a bunch of potions, but she is struggling, since potion making was Ursula’s doing. We learn that Morgana has sister issues with Ursula. She also starts spying on Melody, like Ursula did with Ariel.

So Melody rushes to change into her dress, without even bathing off the smelly ocean residue, which her parents do not notice. I question their parenting. They seem very absent.

Melody is not in the mood to celebrate her birthday with the rest of the palace kids, since they think she is weird. Ariel says she relates, since she felt the same way at her age. FYI Ariel, bring disobedient is different than being a fish out of water and an outcast. She is brought to the ballroom, and as she dances with a young chap, Sebastian (who was tied to her bow) accidentally pinches the boy, which causes everyone to look at her weirdly. Everyone laughs at her for talking to a crab, and Melody runs to cry in her room.

Ariel consoles her daughter in her room, and after she takes the locket she found in the room, Ariel loses her crap, telling her that she should not go to the ocean, and is pissed that she deliberately pissed her off. Melody says that Ariel has never been in the sea, and runs to cry off *eye roll*. Why did they not tell her the truth to begin with? She would have most likely understood why she was not allowed to go into the sea.

We even have the scene where the heroine goes to the villain to make a deal with the devil *groan*. Melody asks Morgana why in the hell the necklace has her name on it, and Morgana tells her tha it is so she can be a mermaid. Melody decides she wants to be a mermaid forever. Are you FUCKING kidding me? Anyways, Eric decides he needs to stay and search for her on land, though…….. he knows that she is in the water……… How sensible. Ariel reunites with her father, and is turned into a mermaid to find her.

Melody is singing about being a mermaid (I forgot to mention that Morgana needs her to take back her trident from a grumpy old man, so she can turn her into a mermaid forever), and Ariel is singing about returning to the sea, and looking for her daughter.

She sees a walrus named Dash (Stephen Furst), and a penguin named Tip (Max Casella), and asks them to help her return a trident to a friend, or else she will turn back into a human, which they of course help. I do not like these two sidekicks. These sidekicks get a song that I do not care to go over.

Ariel finds Flounder (Cam Clarke), and they reunite, with him having a bunch of kids. Eh…

Melody and co. make it to King Triton’s palace, and he is extremely sad, but angered that his granddaughter is not found, not noticing that she is even there. So she has the trident, and they go to her palace to see why she is doing this, and they go to Morgana’s liar to give her the trident. Ariel shows up to the trident, demanding that she gives the trident to her, since Morgana is the liar, but Melody refuses to, and hands it to Morgana. Both Ariel and Melody are idiots. Morgana soon turns on her, and stirs shit up, telling her that she stole from her grandfather, before locking Melody and Flounder by ice in a crevice.

Eric and his boating crew see Morgana holding Ariel, and he goes up to there to get Morgana. She turns her small shark into a huge one, and she drags Eric under water. Melody is losing air, as she is starting to turn into a human. The sidekicks causes the shark to follow them, until they break the ice that Melody is in, right as she starts to drown. They of course save her, and long story short, she ends up getting to Morgana, causing her to stab her tentacle with the trident.

Melody throws the trident to Triton, who turns Morgana into ice, who drowns to her death. Ice does not drown….. Anyways, he destroys the wall between the palace and water, and everyone from the 2 worlds are singing and dancing about finally being united.

I am not impressed with the film. Melody is just like her mother, it is hard to take Ariel seriously, Eric is even more generic, and I feel like we did not learn anything new. Everything was copied and pasted from the last film, but instead of it being Land over Water, it was Water over land. I am not stressing out in hatred for this film, but more so out of the sheer laziness in the film. Pathetic.

Characters

The characters in this film are…….. not impressive in the slightest. Most of them involve repeated arcs from the franchise, have no originality to them, and are extremely irksome. I honestly could not care less for any of the characters in this film.

She is like her mother, and if anyone knows what I think of her mother, it is not good. I get it that you like certain things that are seen as weird, but it does not mean you get to disobey your parents because you are not getting your way, and want to be a part of something that you do not comprehend. Irritation runs in the family.

 

Morgana is the exact same as her older sister, even with the same voice actress, but she has sister and mother issues. She has the same motivation as her sister, the same tactics as her sister, and……. it is just sad how little creativity was put into her.

 

Yeah, I still do not like her in this film. I get it that you want to protect your daughter, but you could at least tell her WHY you are doing what you are doing, but you spent 12 years not doing that. It is also hard to feel bad for her because she was worse to her father, as she abandoned her family and cut contact with them to be a human and to be with Eric.

 

Prince Eric is even more invisible and dull in this film than he was in the last film. Sure, he has his few moments of super stardom, but it is clear that he has less power when it comes to the family dynamics. Eric has shown to be nothing more than a satellite character.

 

King Triton is exactly the same as he was in the last film, but a bit less controlling.

 

Animation

The animation is…… decent when it comes to the colors and the backgrounds, but the character designs are awful. Many of them are inconsistent, unbalanced, and the mouth animation is not the best. There was some stiff animation, and it just looked half assed and sloppy.

Music

Some of the songs are decent, but others are not memorable enough to mention. The score is pretty similar to the one in its predecessor, which means it is not bad, but not as memorable.

Reception at Release

When the film was released on September 19th, 2000, it received mixed to negative reviews, being panned for sucking in all aspects, and having no originality. I can only assume that it still made some money for the company.

Reception Today

People still hate it today, and consider it the worst The Little Mermaid film, and one of the worst DisneyToons films. It is seen as one of the biggest jokes out of the entirety of Disney, and has an even worse reputation now than it did during its release.

Final Score

Story: 4.5/10

Characters: 4.5/10

Animation: 6/10

Music: 7/10

22/40 = 55%

Next time…

Review: April 13th, 2015

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