Blu-ray Movie Reviews

After falling head over hooves in love with Giselle, Elliot's road to the altar takes a slight detour when Mr. Weenie is kidnapped by a group of pampered pets determined to return him to his owners. Boog, Elliot, McSquizzy, Buddy and the rest of the woodland creatures launch a full-scale rescue mission for their sausage-shaped friend and soon find themselves in enemy camp: the world of the pets. Led by a toy poodle named Fifi, the pets do not plan to let Mr. Weenie go without a fight.

I really enjoyed the first Open Season and honestly didn’t have very high expectations for a direct to video sequel; especially when I saw that the original voice cast wasn’t all there. Thankfully this one turned out to be better than I expected, but still fell a bit short of the first film. This one has a simple storyline and the animation isn’t nearly as lush or detailed as the first film. The comedy is good but it isn’t quite as family friendly as the first film and borders a bit on potty humor. The new voice cast sounds surprisingly similar to the original cast so there wasn’t any real distraction there. Overall I liked the film but it falls short of the better animated features, including the first film.

This is a hard one to rate for video. The transfer is great with nice detail, excellent depth and plenty of dimensionality. I did notice some minor shimmering here and there but it was hardly worth noting. The problem is the animation itself. Aside from the characters the animation is lifeless with plastic looking backgrounds and environments that don’t even so much as move. Characters look good but fall short of the detail of the original. This reminded me more of a TV show rather than a feature production. Still, colors looked outstanding and I doubt the kids will complain.

The soundtrack is presented in Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and overall it does a nice job with the material. The sound design is pretty simple and dynamic range is limited. Again, this feels more like a made for TV film than a feature production and the track just doesn’t have the complexity of the first film. Surround use is geared mainly toward ambiance but the front soundstage has a nice open quality to it. Voice work sounds natural enough and the actors sound almost identical to the ones used in the first film.

Extras are geared more toward the kids with this one and includes a neat supplement on learning to draw your favorite characters from the film. We saw something like this on Kung Fu Panda as well. There is a music video and some deleted scenes and a feature on the voice cast in the studio. Like all Sony titles this one is also BD-Live enabled.

Direct to video sequels are usually pretty lame but this one was pretty funny overall. The animation isn’t nearly as compelling as the original but the presentation overall was still pretty good. Easily worth a rental.