Bernardo y Bianca en Cangurolandia

I have always been one of the, maybe, eight or nine big fans of this movie and I have only one small question about it.

WHY CAN'T THEY MAKE MORE LIKE THIS???

If you have not seen this movie yet, you must. It's the first Disney movie to use fully rendered CGI backgrounds throughout and you definately get the sense that the animators wanted to play with this new method. What I'm getting at is that some of you may want to down some motion sickness medicine first.

There are *no* song and dance numbers. Reason being that this is a surprisingly dark, more emotionally complex story for a Disney movie. They went out on a limb and chose not to break the tone up too much.

This is the number two Lost Disney Movie (number one, without a doubt, is "the Hunchback of Notre Dame", which I also love). It's own creators barely acknowledge its existance. The very best evidence of this is on the new video release box's plot summary, where a MAJOR character's gender is misidentified.

On the other hand, I sort of enjoy the idea of a "cult" Disney movie. Instead of marketing "Down Under" to death, Disney can only be accused of the opposite mistake.

So, anyway, here I go again running to this movie's defence. I'll tackle the one major critisism of it before I go. Many critics were expecting another "Rescuers". In my humble opinion, these two movies are two entirely different animals. The original "Rescuers" is an example of where Disney was in the sixties and seventies. "Down Under" is a time capsule of late eighties, early nineties Disney. In other words, you can't really say that one is better than the other as the only thing they have in common are three characters (what I'm getting at is that this should be thought of more as "Rescue Aid Society: the Next Generation").

By the way, I've got an idea that I'm just going to throw out to the proverbial wolves here. Why not make more "Rescuers" movies instead of sequels to Disney movies where follow-up stories make no sence? They are sitting on one heck of a potential franchise here. Just thought I'd let you know.

After nearly two decades of disappointing animated movies, the Disney folks got back to winning ways in 1989 with The Little Mermaid. That marked the start of a succession of five Disney cartoons in a row that were all of a really high quality, the five being The Little Mermaid, The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty And The Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King. The second film on this list - The Rescuers Down Under - is a rip-roaring adventure movie which is a sequel to an earlier Disney movie made in 1977. In fact, the original The Rescuers was a pretty forgettable film and it seems extremely strange that the Disney people had that particular film in mind when they decided to make a sequel. This second instalment is thankfully much more memorable, well-animated ad exciting. It's not often that it can be said, but this is a case of a sequel which is superior to the original.

In the Australian Outback, a young boy named Cody (voice of Adam Reyen) rescues and befriends a rare golden eagle. Later, the boy is captured in a trap by wanted local poacher McLeach (voice of George C. Scott). When McLeach finds one of the eagle's feathers in the boy's backpack he is instantly overcome with excitement, for he knows that to capture such a grandiose bird would make him filthy rich! McLeach kidnaps the boy and attempts to force out of him the whereabouts of the rare eagle. Meanwhile, a message is sent to New York, home of the Rescue Aid Society.... a bunch of dare-devil mice who specialise in saving the lives of endangered children. Once again, mice agents Bernard (voice of Bob Newhart) and Bianca (voice of Eva Gabor) find themselves up to their neck in adventure as they try to rescue young Cody from his abductor's lair.

The animation in this 1990 release is absolutely excellent and seems to mark a significant step forward in terms of the technology available to animators. The story is exciting and fast-paced, with just a sprinkling of humour to offer a little relief from the action from time to time. On the whole, the voice acting is very good, most notably Newhart and Gabor as the heroes, with solid support from John Candy's comical albatross and Scott's seriously unpleasant villain. Purists might be surprised and disappointed by the lack of the usual catchy Disney songs (there are none in this one, not even a theme song over the credits), but in most departments this is a first-rate animated movie that should enthral kids and adults alike.

The Rescuers Down Under is one of the few times when the sequel is better than the original. The animation is impressive, the plot is engaging and it doesn't have any boring musical interludes. It also has more humor than The Rescuers, which my kids (and my wife) appreciated.

There is a lot to look at during the movie, but most kids don't watch animated films for the scenery. Characters are well developed at the expense of a satisfactory ending. Wilbur, voiced by John Candy & Frank, voice by Wayne Robson are great additions to the rescuers' cast. My beef with the film is at the end when Gordy says let's go home, there are the loose ends of the poor animals still in cages that we don't see freed and we never get to see joy on Gordy's Mother's face on his return from the dead. I guess they just ran out of ink.

I love this movie. I saw the original on the cinema when it was re-released and then of course saw this. It is in my opinion the only decent sequel Disney has ever made.(2D animation anyway, Toy Story 2 is superb) All the others have been straight-to-video and terrible. (Lady and the Tramp 2/Pocahontas 2 etc) The animation in Down Under is superb, the voice talent outstanding, and the villain in the shape of John McCleach very very funny. There are no songs, and actually, you don't notice the lack of them. I think it works better. The best line in the film has to be McCleachs' boast: "I didn't make it all the way through third grade for nothing!"