Film Review #68: Bambi 2

Often, a person can be surprised by what a film can offer you.  I was afraid to see this film, mostly because of how poorly Walt's films that got sequels had been treated.  Despite being a fairly boring film, Bambi II may be one of the finer efforts of the Disney Toon studios.  I daresay it is one of the finer Disney Sequel efforts, including Aladdin and the King of Thieves and The Lion King II.

Plot: After the tragic death of his mother, Bambi is forced to live with his father, The Great Prince, who isn't too keen on the idea either.  All Bambi attempts to do throughout the movie is to earn the respect and love of his estranged father, while the father does the best he can while running both the forest and his young son.

What's Bad?: The only thing I can find that I wasn't too fond of in the movie, was the way the film dealt with the death of Bambi's mom.  I guess it's due to the adult measures The Lion King took to dealing with the death of Mufasa, but two of my close friends lost both of their parents not too long ago and both are still devastated by the loss.  The fact that Bambi was quick to recover after such a shocking turn in his life was a bit of a shock to me, considering how well the rest of the film was written.

Another nitpick for me would be about how boring the film was.  If this was the fate that the original film would have been if it had been longer, than I recant my previous statement regarding Bambi's short length.

What's Good?: Everybody wishes they could have a relationship with their father that rivaled Mufasa and Simba's.  But often, our father-child relationships tend to be more like Triton and Ariel, or more commonly, Bambi and The Great Prince.  All the children want to do is win their father's approval and praise, but the father has a good deal of things to worry about outside of you and your achievements.  Nevertheless, this film is the rare sequel that picks up on a serious flaw of the original, that being the relationship between Bambi and his father.  If the original film was supposed to be about Bambi's life, than his relationship with his mother AND father are fairly important.  Instead, the film glossed over the mother's death and basically moved right into Bambi's adulthood.

The animation is also fairly strong.  Considering the shoestring budgets these films usually run on, this is a fairly surprising trait the film has.

Overall: The film, while still no where near matching the quality of the first film, still manages to capture a reasonably sized fraction of it's moral values, while also adding onto what was already a storied film.  It is as good as these awful Disney Sequels are going to get.

Final Grade:  B