SPOILER WARNING
The original Homeward Bound story is a fascinating story of wide panoramic settings, a strong bond between the three animals, Shadow, Sassy and Chance and a pledge with one another to walk home to San Francisco despite the miles and miles of dangerous wilderness between them. The three main characters are well rounded, interesting, and you care about them so much that the human characters seem somewhat less relevant (though not entirely because they serve as motivation for the characters to when they will return home).
This however, is not.
We're at a point where the family is preparing to go camping in Canada, but after a paranoid Chance cocks things up by thinking he's being abandoned, the animals stupidly run away from the airport and find themselves down the back streets of San Francisco.
The animals seem to meander around the city mindlessly, dodging two very thick men working for illegal testing labs and two incredibly irritating strays (one of whom dubiously has a voice uncannily similar to Mike Tyson), team up with a gang of other misanthrope strays now and again (even more insufferable with some of the awful garbagy lines spouted out), and in general, the film doesn't seem to know what to do with itself, because as we all know, since these animals successfully navigated an entire wilderness for miles and miles last time, a city would be pretty small potatoes! We even fill the gap by having a bit where a kid is saved from a burning house! Any minute, I would expect Rin-Tin-Tin to come up with his attorney with a cease-and-desist note and threats of suing for copyright (and to be honest, I wouldn't blame him)! It is so bone-idle, that it in fact levers in a cheesy romance plot between Chance and a stray called Delilah! What were the writing team thinking when they cooked this up? My only conclusion: They're all raving lunatics! We don't need a stupid romantic sub-plot levered into these films, it's totally superfluous! To make this story aggravatingly boneheaded, we even have a love rival by the way of another irritating redneck-drawling stray dog with the brains of a kipper! (For some reason, they use a Grand-Bleu De Gascogne for this, sadly a very rare dog, which would smack of doggie racism, unless it perhaps indicates that the writers hate the French and the rednecks.) I also wonder why Chance still behaves like a terminally-naive puppy despite his last experiences in the wilderness which would surely have taught him a thing or two! Not forgetting, in the first film, Chance explained that before he was adopted he was a stray dog, and was abandoned when still a puppy, so he'd know a little about living on the streets don't you think? The conclusion that wraps up the film's stories is cringe worthy to the point of wanting to put your foot through the telly! I won't reveal it, but if you look at the rest of the film, a climax of this film will not be worth the case it is carried in! Stick to Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey. At least that way you can pretend that this Godawful mess never existed and enjoy the better original. Watching this sequel may result in you hurling yourself in front of a freight train! You have been warned!
The original Homeward Bound story is a fascinating story of wide panoramic settings, a strong bond between the three animals, Shadow, Sassy and Chance and a pledge with one another to walk home to San Francisco despite the miles and miles of dangerous wilderness between them. The three main characters are well rounded, interesting, and you care about them so much that the human characters seem somewhat less relevant (though not entirely because they serve as motivation for the characters to when they will return home).
This however, is not.
We're at a point where the family is preparing to go camping in Canada, but after a paranoid Chance cocks things up by thinking he's being abandoned, the animals stupidly run away from the airport and find themselves down the back streets of San Francisco.
The animals seem to meander around the city mindlessly, dodging two very thick men working for illegal testing labs and two incredibly irritating strays (one of whom dubiously has a voice uncannily similar to Mike Tyson), team up with a gang of other misanthrope strays now and again (even more insufferable with some of the awful garbagy lines spouted out), and in general, the film doesn't seem to know what to do with itself, because as we all know, since these animals successfully navigated an entire wilderness for miles and miles last time, a city would be pretty small potatoes! We even fill the gap by having a bit where a kid is saved from a burning house! Any minute, I would expect Rin-Tin-Tin to come up with his attorney with a cease-and-desist note and threats of suing for copyright (and to be honest, I wouldn't blame him)! It is so bone-idle, that it in fact levers in a cheesy romance plot between Chance and a stray called Delilah! What were the writing team thinking when they cooked this up? My only conclusion: They're all raving lunatics! We don't need a stupid romantic sub-plot levered into these films, it's totally superfluous! To make this story aggravatingly boneheaded, we even have a love rival by the way of another irritating redneck-drawling stray dog with the brains of a kipper! (For some reason, they use a Grand-Bleu De Gascogne for this, sadly a very rare dog, which would smack of doggie racism, unless it perhaps indicates that the writers hate the French and the rednecks.) I also wonder why Chance still behaves like a terminally-naive puppy despite his last experiences in the wilderness which would surely have taught him a thing or two! Not forgetting, in the first film, Chance explained that before he was adopted he was a stray dog, and was abandoned when still a puppy, so he'd know a little about living on the streets don't you think? The conclusion that wraps up the film's stories is cringe worthy to the point of wanting to put your foot through the telly! I won't reveal it, but if you look at the rest of the film, a climax of this film will not be worth the case it is carried in! Stick to Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey. At least that way you can pretend that this Godawful mess never existed and enjoy the better original. Watching this sequel may result in you hurling yourself in front of a freight train! You have been warned!