Kirikou and the Wild Beasts

Got this because the kiddos enjoyed the first installment and its fairly difficult to find African-themed animation. The baby-man returns for more adventures in this series of short episodes, usually featuring animals, which made my son especially happy. These mostly unfold around his home village in the Sahel, but he also visits other African landmarks such as Victoria Falls and Mount Kilimanjaro. Once again he is thwarting the evil plots of the Sorceress and her fetiches, which are mostly portrayed as mute automatons, except for the one that is placed atop her home, the only one which talks, and can see far into the distance with a scope: my daughter notes that this is "an AI" with "computer vision" (spoken like a true Zoomer gen!). In (typical?) French fashion, after the Sorceress is defeated in the final episode, the young Kirikou complains that he misses her, because he is attracted to her!! I'm pretty sure there's a compelling Lacanian reading to this, but I'll leave it to someone else-is Kirikou past the mirror stage?

A spin off of the first movie with four separated stories about the daily life in Kirikou's village.

The movie is lovely, the stories very entertaining and original, our favourite characters are still there, and, most importantly, the movie offers glimpses of the life in a West-African village, which are precious to show to a Western audience of children. The stories will show kids that not everybody is the same, dresses the same, or lives the same, that Africa is an amazing beautiful varied continent, and that the world is richer because of that.

Like in the first movie, Ocelot's drawings and visuals are simple, very attentive to landscape and plant drawing, very ethnographic in a a way. The stories, though, have a good dollop of magical reality.

Overall, the movie doesn't have the energy and spark of the first movie as the different stories are unrelated -except for the fact that Kirikou and his neighbors are in them- and they are also plainer, less engaging, and more for children than for adults.

I cannot compare with the first film which I have not yet seen (see previous review that liked it better). I hesitated to give it a 10, but I cannot point to a fault in this animation for children. My grand children love it, and have seen it repeatedly: I would say it can be watched from two to seven (I have not yet tried older). From my point of view it teaches a lot that is important, including cultural differences, respect, empathy, among many other things. Tasteful and non violent, though not escaping conflictual situations. The quality of the drawing and the animation is simple and aesthetically pleasing, especially regarding colors.

Look, this is probably not very objective of me, but I personally can't stand those sequels that are nothing more than a collection of short stories with characters from the first movie. I still have nightmares from those *insert curse here* Disney sequels. To this movie's credit though, other than on a story level - which still matters A LOT - I didn't see anything else that is inferior to the first movie, with the possible exception of an inexplicably larger role for the elder of the village, an incredibly obnoxious presence that'll make you want to punch him in the face every time he opens his mouth.

Really, there isn't much to say. This is a sequel to Kirikou et la sorcière as much as Belle's Magical World is a sequel to Beauty and the Beast and... I don't know guys... maybe if you REALLY liked the first movie you'll find this enjoyable, but for me, this is something that should have been aired on Saturday mornings, not shown in theaters. If Kirikou et la sorcière didn't exist, this movie would make absolutely no sense: oh yeah, it's THAT kind of sequel, one that's entirely dependant on the movie that came before it.

Again, not a 'bad' sequel, aside from a decent plot it didn't feel like it was missing much of what made the first movie great (the visuals, the morals, the relatability, even the little scares are still there), but while the first movie was a wildly original piece with amazing visuals and a strong, fairytale-like feeling to it, this one feels like it was made by stitching together scenes that were cut from Kirikou et la sorcière. Advised for children who want to see more Kirikou in their lives, but with little purpose outside of that.