Truly Dreadful Film

Absolutely the worst movie.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Let me first start by saying that I am a huge fan of the first movie, The Last Rainforest: with its intriguing animation, original beautiful storyline with the strong themes of environmentalism and deforestation. The characters were splendid and fresh, and the villain Hexuss, played by Tim Curry, absolutely terrified me as a child.So watching this movie felt like someone was attempting to butcher it beyond recognition. The first of the many things I saw wrong with this film is the animation. It's cheap, flat and uninteresting. There is no plot, so to speak of. A few hunters kidnap baby animals (who are not even that cute or worth feeling too sorry for) and the residents of Ferngully have to go and rescue them. All the actors from the original film have been replaced by less professional voice actors. The characters are simply cardboard cut outs of the original. Crysta seems to have completely forgotten about Zak, their relationship being the core center of the first film, and Pips is complaining about nothing. But the worst change is Batty. Voiced by Robin Williams in the first, the newly voiced Batty in this sequel is just loud and abrasive. For some unknown reason, his head antenna is missing, he has hands instead claws and automatically overcomes his fear of humans to cheer the animals up when they are locked away. And the villains are just the most awful creations ever. They are the repeated stereotypical human hunters who view animals as nothing more than object to be killed and sold over for money, with horribly bad dialogue and silly laughs. Avoid at all costs.

The original FernGully is one of my all time favourites, it is funny, beautifully animated, moving and even scary in places. Not to mention underrated. In fact, its only problem was that it was too short. However, the sequel, while I didn't think was as awful as the cheap and unnecessary Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy To The Rescue, was very disappointing. It had a nice idea but just didn't work.There are a couple of redeeming qualities. One was that the music, while nowhere near as good as the original's music(that score is beautiful), was not so bad. Whether it is memorable though that's the thing. Second was that it does have a nice message. Third, the baby animals and Budgie are very sweet and cute.Sadly, that's where the redeeming qualities end. I will warn you I will be comparing a bit here. This sequel did have some very cheesy moments, and lacked the magic of the first film. One of my first problems was the animation. The original FernGully's animation was colourful, fluid and solid. Here it was rather dull and tacky, plus the colours looked much flatter than they should have done. Also in the original, FernGully itself had a sense of wonder, and it was like a Fairytopia, but I didn't get that here. FernGully seemed rather... how do I put it simply, ordinary I suppose. The writing was also nothing to write home about, and even with the presence of Batty, the whole adventure suffered from a lack of laughs.The villains were rather lame, compared to the terrifying Hexxus. Hexxus gave me nightmares when I first saw the original at 9 years old, and it was not only how he was animated, but also Tim Curry's (a very talented and underrated actor) imperiously chilling vocal performance. Sadly, the villains, poachers here, weren't at all threatening, and even worse, they were poorly drawn, and most of their dialogue is unbelievably bad. The story admittedly was a nice idea, if only it didn't take such a long time to get going. There are a number of long, drawn out and even pointless scenes, giving the film an uneven sense of pulse.The characters weren't as likable as they were in the first movie, and I did think overall the voice acting was poor. Crysta has lost her spunk, determination and even vivacity here. And in the sequel, most of it was about Pips, seeing that Crytsta is such a great character, there should have been more of her and she should've gone on the rescue mission too. I am wondering, whether the filmmakers were the same as the original, I would be surprised if so, seeing how much it deviates from the original. And although Zak isn't in this sequel, seeing as his and Crysta's relationship was one of the original's main focuses, I was saddened that Crysta appears to have completely forgotten about him. The character I had the biggest problem with though was Batty. First of all, I hated how he was animated. Secondly, Robin Williams actually made the first movie, he was absolutely hilarious and his humour effortless. However, I didn't like the new voice actor at all, he lacked the hilarity and vibrancy of Williams, and I found him rather loud and abrasive too. It certainly didn't help with the dialogue he was given, how lame was it? Very! All in all, a hugely disappointing sequel, with very little of the magic of the beautiful original. I almost forgot to mention the ending, it wasn't as powerful or even poignant as the one in the first one. Kids may like it, but fans of the original and adults are guaranteed to be disappointed. 3/10 Bethany Cox

Ferngully is one of my favorite animated films of all time, I loved watching it while I was growing up, it had great animation, wonderful characters, funny moments, terrific songs, and a touching message. It was such a great movie for kids and I admit that I still watch it to this day. So I figured I would check out the sequel and see if it would be anything like the first Ferngully. Well, it's not just the mismatched voices that disturbed me, but it seemed like this was supposed to be like the TV cartoon that never got lifted off the ground. The story wasn't bad, but without the same voices, it was a bit distracting, and the new characters didn't have the same charm as the first Ferngully. For the kids, at least under age 7, this film would work for them, but for me, it doesn't.Crysta and her friends are back, Pips is having a bit of a problem excepting his life. He's finding the forest to be a bit boring. But when two evil men come into the forest, they kidnap the baby animals and accidentally burn the forest down. Crysta, Pips, and Batty wanna help restore the forest, Crysta stays home to create her magic while Batty and Pips go to the town to save the baby animals. There Pips meets a pre-teen girl, Twig, and she helps him out to save the baby animals.FernGully 2: The Magical Rescue isn't really worth the watch, for the kids, yeah, but for those adults who enjoyed the first one, there's no point to it. I think this was just an attempt for the TV cartoon, there were just certain elements that reminded me of the Disney spin off's on TV. But for the kids I would recommend this film, otherwise, just do yourself a favor, save yourself the money or rental. I wish I did, I was hoping for a fun sequel, instead I got Velveeta cheese.2/10

I'm a FernGully fan and found FernGully II to be as, if not more, entertaining and held some deeper character involvement and exposure that i'm certain children "got" but think few "adults" did – there are many feelings adults take for granted and "skip over" that remain unanswered, curious and loved by children - they are always hungry for explanation and that's why I am a big animated movie fan – I also think it's fun and enjoy knowing the why of every little thing - Pips and Chrysta's relationship skirted perfectly, Chrysta matured just enough, and Pips became her and FernGully's hero (with a little help from his friends of course) – I liked the fact that Pips got more attention to date – I found the story delightful, frightening but in a "be aware" sort of way – and even the ecology of the replanting and re-growth of everything was just enough to introduce children to this topic and make them curious – and even the "babies" being taken was an awareness that held a lot of emotion and intrigue for the little ones – Kudos to the writers for better scripting and a general "well done" to all involved – Lots of magic here if you are really listening – OK so we missed Robin - but don't we always and this is about FernGully not him (sorry Robin) -