Zog and the Flying Doctors

Zog and the Flying Doctors is another book from Julia Donaldson given the animated treatment.

Princess Pearl is a doctor who decides to forsake royal duties and look after the needs of the animals.

She, Zog and Sir Gadabout fly about seek out animals in distress. A mermaid who has been sunburnt, a lion who has the flu and a unicorn with an extra horn. They are all dealt with by the trio.

However Princess Pearl's uncle, also a king, believes that a princess has no reason to be a doctor. He locks her up in the tower and give her more girly things to do.

Then the king falls ill and turns orange. All the doctors in the kingdom cannot cure him but the princess comes up with a remedy.

Another charming animation for all the family. It is a fairly simple story and is well animated. There is some subtext which plays around with the fairy tale tropes.

The first Zog film was excellent. Granted, the Zog book itself was better, but Zog & The Flyikg Doctors film is pretty bad.

The voices are poorly selected (the Lion, the King, the Mermaid, the Unicorn - they all just don't sit quite right).

The narration by Lenny Henry is awful (his "bang, crash, thumps" for example, have zero emphasis - he sounds bored like he just wants to get paid and go home).

There is too much fighting - they have embellished on the story and added in fight scenes that feel out of place, and not ideal for watching with a toddler.

All in all, pretty poor. Stick with the original - the story, and the execution of the film, are leagues above this.

So in the two years since we first met our brightly coloured dragon, he and the princess "Pearl" and their erstwhile knight "Gadabout" have taken to the skies to launch their original flying doctor service. It's quite a job they've undertaken as they have to treat a sunburnt mermaid, a unicorn with an unique problem and a lion with an even more annoying one. Needless to say, her uncle the King wants her to settle down and be more responsible in the kingdom she will one day rule, indeed he even locks her up in her room - but one day when he falls ill, she and her friends have to try to work their magic to save his life. It's not quite as much fun as the original, but it's still an amiably paced series of escapades that extol the virtues of kindness and teamwork whilst also showing that a degree of bloody mindedness does no harm, either! The animation itself is vivid and active and the story a family affair that makes you smile rather than laugh out loud. It's clearly not just a bee that has mind-baffling aerodynamics. How ever does "Zog" get into the sky?

Zog And The Flying Doctors (2) (2020) -

I was a bit disappointed with this one. Honestly I wasn't much of a fan of its predecessor 'Zog' (2018), but this one just seemed a bit like cashing in on that one's popularity and a tad basic in that it didn't bring anything new.

I don't think that the story was as well developed as it could have been and it wasn't until the second part of it that it really had anything going for it at all. Perhaps it would have been better to show how being a caring person is a good thing, with the Doctors taking on bigger and bigger challenges instead, because the King was a bit overpowering as a character and his message seemed to be louder than the Flying Doctors.

Also, Sir Gadabout might as well have been completely cut from the story for all he did and I assume that was why Kit Harrington didn't come back to voice him again.

Maybe I will watch it again in the future and feel differently, perhaps I was having my period and being a bit grumpy, but as it stands now, I would be unlikely to return to it in any hurry.

433.85/1000.

A story as warm as it can be, as heartfelt as it should be, as meaningful as it proves to be...

Enjoyed very much by both young and old!