I can't deny the movie is a delight to the eye and may be playful enough to entertain young children. For me, however, the original is enough.
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A sticker on the front of the slipcover quotes from Scott Mantz of "Access Hollywood," proclaiming the 2006 release of "Bambi II" as a "delightful, enchanting sequel...worth the wait." One has to wonder, if the movie is so delightful and enchanting, why Disney issued it directly to video instead of to theaters, and why the studio waited over sixty years to make a sequel. Such rhetorical questions aside, "Bambi II" is sweet and innocent and beautiful to look at. Still, it isn't hard to see why it might not have made much of a box office splash in the face of more hip new CGI competition.
However, it would be a mistake to think of "Bambi II" as a sequel in the sense of a continuation; it isn't. Instead, the events of "Bambi II" take place within the context of the first movie. A person could insert this newer film into the middle of the original film and make one long movie of the two. Unfortunately, the problem with this new story is that there isn't much story to it. It's as if the filmmakers, in trying desperately to maintain the tone and feel of the first movie, strove hard simply to interpose added scenes here and there, with little sense of any defining purpose or whole.
Of course, the first movie didn't have much story line, either; and in fairness there really is a broad, general theme involved in this newer one; two themes, in fact. We see the development of Bambi's relationship with his father, and we see Bambi growing up, maturing, and becoming more confident in himself. But beyond these generalities, there is really no single, unifying conflict in the movie to hold it together. As a result, the narrative feels merely like a random string of events.
"Bambi II" takes up at the point in the story where Bambi has just lost his mother and is calling for her. His father, the Great Prince of the Forest, tells him "your mother can't be with you anymore.... I think it's best to leave the past in the past." However, the father is not too keen on fulfilling his fatherly obligations, and he tries to avoid raising Bambi himself by pawning him off on an accommodating doe. I guess it's all right to sire children but not to raise them. He gives the excuse that he's too busy looking after the welfare of the herd to raise a kid, but Friend Owl persuades him otherwise.
The cute and loveable little creatures of the forest that we've all come to know and adore are cuter and more loveable than ever, to the point of sometimes being cloying to this adult. Nevertheless, it is a children's movie, and the very young may enjoy it immensely.
Critters both familiar and new populate the tale, most of the younger characters appropriately voiced by child actors. It is only Patrick Stewart as the Great Prince and Keith Ferguson as Friend Owl who sound like grown-ups. Bambi is played by Alexander Gould, the ten-year-old who also did Bambi in the video game "Kingdom Hearts II" and the voice of Nemo in Pixar's "Finding Nemo," among other roles for the busy young actor. Thumper the rabbit is played by Brendon Baerg; Flower the skunk by Nicky Jones; Faline the young female fawn by Andrea Bowen; and a new character, Ronno, by Anthony Ghannam.
Thank heaven for Ronno, a welcome contrast as the brash, egotistical, bullying, show-off deer, about Bambi's age, who taunts Bambi saying, "Bambi? Isn't that a girl's name?" Well, he's got a point there. For years as a kid I wasn't sure of Bambi's gender, either.
For the first half hour of the movie, I waited in vain for some sort of central conflict to kick in. At last, the filmmakers give us a scene of hunting dogs in the forest that seems promising, and later they repeat the menace to good effect in an exciting climactic chase. But most of the time we have to content ourselves with observing the father-son relationship and Bambi's fear that his father is neglecting him. Bambi wants more than anything to prove himself to his dad by showing him how brave he is. I'm not entirely sure that that is the proper message to be sending to children--that male offspring must validate their worth through daring physical action--but who am I to second-guess the Disney organization. They have the psychology of children down pat through years of experience. I think.
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