A few years ago I covered the original ‘Little Heroes’ over on my youtube channel and I remember it being a tonally messy, badly paced drawn out picture that would *probably* hold the attention of a 6 year old for about 60 minutes, but not for much past that and generally gave off the stink of ‘Home Alone’ knock off…

WELL! Im having concentration issues at the minute, so I figured tonight was a good time to try ‘Dog Story: Little Heroes 2’ to see what i’ve been missing in the 4 and a half year gap…the answer is…not a tremendous amount.

The film picks up…lets sayyyy…12 months after the events of the first movie, Charlie and his dad are hanging out with Charlies ‘Aunt Karen’ (His mums in New York on business) and Charlie and Karen are about to head out on a little vacation on a naval base as Karen works in PR for the Navy and Charlie will take any excuse to be near weapons of mass destruction…

While exploring the battleships and radar dishes however, Hercules and Sampson (the titular ‘Little Heroes’ who are also along for the ride) spot an old fisherman fall into the dock and begin to drown, naturally the pair save him and as a result a press conference is called in which the dogs get a city medal of achievement and Charlie and Karen are treated to an all expenses paid vacation at Universal Studios Orlando™ with an all access VIP pass…im…im not sure why they’re getting something out of the deal but…*shrugs*…

Meanwhile our Criminals from the first film have been plagued with adorable nightmares of Sampson and Hercules in cute little costumes torturing and tormenting the pair. They end up in a Neurotherapy session where the doctor explains that in order to resolve their trauma, they need to find the dogs and make peace with them. Which…they cant do because their in Jail.

Luckily for them, they ACCIDENTALLY escape when they get jumped by some of the prisoners and after an explosion of suds in the laundry room they fall down a laundry chute and into the back of a wagon, that JUST SO HAPPENS to be stopping about 20 minutes away from Universal Studios Orlando™ . and…What follows is basically an extended commercial for the theme park, with the baddies getting caught up and injured by the various ‘stunt rides’ at the park while trying to find the dogs, while Charlie and Karen have fun on rides inspired by Jaws, Jurassic Park, and they get to hang around with Woody Woodpecker, Xena, Charlie Chaplin and Frankenstein…thats the rest of the movie. It essentially turns into a vacation home movie crossed with an advert for a theme park.

The big positive I WILL get out of the way here (and why I actually prefer this film a bit more than the original) is that the script itself is a bit tighter than the first offering. they actually decide to stay pretty grounded in slapsticky ‘Stooge-esq’ humour for the most part, theres no jarring tonal changes, its poor comedy…but its a lot more solid than last time.

I think it also works in the films favour that they make the bad guys trying to get closure the main drive of the film, rather than putting Charlie back in the driving seat. The villains of the piece are much more charismatic and enjoyable to be around (they’re VERY annoying…so I hope that helps establish just HOW BAD everyone else is) and I think giving them an actual arc, chracter development and a purpose really helps give this thing a bit more life. despite it being a story about amazing hero dogs and their well connected boy genius. Giving the baddies the floor on this one actually kind of helped give the film a bit more character I found…

Its also technically a lot more proficient too, the direction feels smoother, bigger budgeted. Im STILL in shock that this thing was shot of film. theres good colour use, consistant compositional choices and the director also edited this feature and its clear he’s learnt a lot since his last venture into cutting films.

All of the above however is essentially ‘the trimmings’…because what I also need to mention here…is that this is basically one LONG and in NO WAY SUBTLE commercial for Navy recruitment and Universal Studios Orlando™

The opening act goes out of its way to make out ‘HOW COOL THE NAVY IS!’ and how every boy, girl, man, woman or dog should DESPERATELY want to join the navy RIGHT NOW (yvan eht Nioj). which I thought was a terribly cynical move on the part of the film makers, especially in a kids film. But then around the end of the first act, they get bored with the Navy lark and suddenly it becomes a Universal studios commercial for the entire second act and a good chunk of the 3rd!

Literally, a good 35-45 minutes of this film is either Charlie or Karen REALLY trying to sell how fun the rides are at Universal, or it’s the baddies running around ‘Earthquake’ or getting beat up by King Kong…and it just doesnt stop. It felt in places like a brochure promo film. I kept expecting an (08) number to scroll across the bottom of the screen to confirm a reservation. Its so blatent in its intentions, it honestly cant be intepreted in any other way…its just…bizarre.

around that same time is when the padding kicks into high gear. realistically the film could have done its whole 3 acts in about 60 minutes. But thers AT LEAST 25 minutes of solid padding of just, the baddies talking about their next moves, or footage of the rides, or footage of people just…walking about. The thing is, I quite LIKED the semi commercial nature of this picture. But the padding actually talked me out of it. Its AWFUL in that sense and while technically theres a big improvement, I have to ask what the point was if they were just going to throw that goodwill away to try and hawk tickets to a theme park or set Billy up for a future in the armed forces.

Oh! and the performances are about the same quality as the first film (most of the original cast are back, and its only a year on…sooooo I wasnt really expecting much in that department) I feel them leaning into comedy harder does work in the films favour though. And the soundtrack is SO cheap and synthy its unreal. I hated it.

‘Little Heroes 2’ is not an original film. its trying DESPERATELY to piggy back off of a TON of other more recognisable brands and businesses (see: the promotional material. Which was trying to cash in on ‘Toy Story’…despite a total non conneciton being present)

The problem with that stratagey is, unless your film is AS GOOD as the brands that appear in it…or is infamously bad…you just end up making the audience want to watch or do something else instead.

This film IS better than the original, but dont expect an actual well written and coherent work. its 80% commercial bolted onto 20% one note (but consistent) plotting. I didnt hate it, I probably wont watch it again on its own…vaguely recommended if you wanna explore knock off home alone movies or have a strong love and nostalgia for Universal Studios Orlando™ in the late 90s…but otherwise, its a hard pass.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/little-heroes-2/