MarzGurl Discusses All Dogs Go to Heaven 2

(Clips from the movie are shown)

MarzGurl (vo): All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 is a direct theatrical sequel to the first movie, released seven years later in 1996. While Don Bluth had no involvement with this movie, I suppose I've seen far worse follow-ups to Bluth's titles. However, much like other sequels to his work, you might expect this to have a huge lack of the heart the original movie had, and in fact, you'd be right. For starters, it's particularly unfortunate that Burt Reynolds did not reprise his role as Charlie Barkin; the original witty banter between Burt and Dom DeLuise as Charlie and Itchy is completely gone, and the dialogue is very forced and empty. Instead, Charlie's voice is replaced by that of Charlie Sheen, making Charlie Sheen jokes far too embarrassingly easy.

(Audio of Charlie Sheen doing his infamous rants is played over the clips)

Charlie Sheen (vo):  I win here and I win there, now what? / I'm a high priest, a Vatican Satan warlock / You'll die and your face will melt off, and I'll weep over your exploded body.

MarzGurl (vo): The movie begins with Charlie being thrilled to see Itchy up in Heaven, who has died by choking to death on a chicken leg.

Itchy: Where am I?

Charlie: You ol' fleabag, you!

MarzGurl (vo): But wait, where's the concern for Anne-Marie?

(The poster for the first movie is shown briefly)

MarzGurl (vo): You know, the heartwretching little girl from the last movie, where is she? Does nobody care? Nope, no concern for how she's doing, now that her best friends are dead. I wonder, just how much time has passed, anyway? It's never really revealed to us. Carface somehow managed to get to Heaven after the last movie, you know, because all dogs go to Heaven, right? Well, somebody's gotta make a change to that rule, because Carface makes a deal with the Devil (Red), who happens to be in cat form. Man, these depictions of Heaven and Hell are pretty racist, as far as pets go. Well, he steals Gabriel's Horn, a powerful tool used to open the pearly white gates with the intent to bring it to Satan cat. The only problem is that he's dropped it somewhere on Earth, specifically in San Francisco, and now, he's basically useless to Satan. So they gotta send some angel dogs down to Earth to retrieve the horn. Of course, Charlie wants to go, he's bored with Heaven. Angel lady (Annabelle), you know exactly why he wants to go down there, and it's obvious that you know; you even send Itchy with him to make sure nothing bad happens, which frankly, is still a terrible idea. See, the deal is that only angels can hear the mystical ringing of the horn. So although Carface is down on Earth with the horn, he can't hear it and he can't find it, making Charlie an important commodity for the Devil. While Charlie is figuring out that it sucks to be on Earth and be an angel because you can't communicate with a hot girl dog standing right in front of you, Carface is sitting right there wearing a collar produced by Satan, allowing him to be seen in the Earthly realm. This is how Charlie gets tricked into wearing a similar collar forged by Satan, all with the goal of obtaining the horn. Actually, now that I've been in on the movie for a while, I'm a little bit confused, what decade does this take place in, exactly? Itchy only just barely died, right? So this couldn't have taken place all that many years after the events of the first movie, which took place in 1939, but this looks relatively modern, at least 1990s modern. What, did MGM just forget? Sounds pretty likely to me. So now that Charlie is back in the physical realm, he ignores his mission, like classic Charlie, and pursues the lady dog, Sasha like a creeper. Sasha is a stray who apparently keeps a little runaway boy named David as a pet. This, obviously is our replacement for Anne-Marie, only no, he isn't; he isn't nearly as endearing as she was; he isn't cute, he isn't funny, and he ran away from home because he didn't want to call his stepmom Mom. That's nowhere near as heartwretching as anything in the last movie and you know it, MGM, shame on you! He can perform a few cheap magic tricks, though, I guess that's cool. With the collar on, Charlie can talk to the kid, giving yet another excuse to make David similar to Anne-Marie. Charlie also foolishly uses his one miracle granted to him back in Heaven to give to Sasha, so that she can talk to David, too. Charlie's initial plan is to take the kid someplace so he can perform, which is when he and Itchy hear Gabriel's Horn being taken into the lost and found area of a police station. This should actually be really easy, right?

(A clip is shown with Charlie floating through the room and grabbing the horn, but it gets caught in a cage and it drops on the floor behind the cop.)

MarzGurl (vo): What the heck?! This would be so easy; take the collar off so he can't be seen, grab the horn, blow the horn and open the gate, and walk out with it! Why is this even a problem?! But nope, we have to watch this big, dumb police station wrecking chase scene. You know, to give some excitement to the kids? Well, after that, they could go home now, right? No, they don't just automatically go home once the horn is in their paws? It doesn't just work like that? No, Charlie foolishly throws it into a lobster trap and says, "Hey, how about we make some cash now?" And after that doesn't go too well, David finally agrees to go home, but only if Charlie will take him. Charlie agrees and Sasha starts to show that she's falling in love with Charlie really friggin' quickly, which is when Satan's collar quits working. Oh, did I mention that the collar only works for a day? Yeah, the collar only works for a day. So Charlie freaks out and goes back to disguised Satan for another collar, but Satan won't give him another collar unless Charlie brings him Gabriel's Horn. (as Satan) Ha, fooled you! I was Satan all along, and now I've kidnapped your kid, too, so you don't have any choice but to bring me the horn! (normal) It's all quite predictable. Satan cat uses the horn to capture all the dogs in Heaven, but some stuff happens and Charlie plays the horn again to send them back and sends Satan cat back to Hell, Carface too, I guess.

Charlie: Say, what did you trade Red for your collar?

(As Carface is speaking, two of Red's demons come out of a hole and grab him)

Carface: He wanted the bottom of my shoes or something. (laughs) I don't even wear shoes. That stupid cat! (laughs)

Red (vo): Stupid dog, it was your soul!

(The demons drag Carface down into Hell as the main characters watch on)

Carface: Ahh, let me go! (grunts) Red, stop, let me gooooo!!!

Itchy: What do you know? And I thought all dogs go to Heaven.

MarzGurl (vo): HA, he said it! Charlie's an accidental hero...again, and this time, he's rewarded by being sent back down to Earth to be given a second life, with David returned home to his family and adopting both Charlie and Sasha. That's...sweet, I guess.

Kids will probably really like this movie. It's fairly colorful, paced decently, and the characters actually behave relatively similar to their behavior from the previous movie. They'll probably really like the musical numbers, too. Yeah, I didn't talk about them much. What's there to talk about? Unless you're a kid, they're mostly forgettable and really unnecessary to the plot of the movie.

Charlie: (singing) Calm and quiet, and much too mellow

MarzGurl (vo): But if you're trying to compare it to its predecessor, it falls very much short. The color isn't as good, neither is the animation as a whole, the writing is simple and predictable, and the boy feels more like a shoehorned replacement for Anne-Marie rather than doing a good job of being his own character. I was relatively disappointed with Red, the Satan cat, too. Most Hell-ish scenes seemed pretty dumbed down and cartooned in comparison to Charlie's dream sequence from the first movie. I hate when studios are scared of making kids scared. All in all, no, this isn't the sequel I would've asked for. This isn't the movie for me, but it's probably the movie for somebody out there much younger than me.

(Credits are shown)