"All Dogs go to Heaven" (Bluth, 1989, MGM/UA) is one of my favourite animated films of all time. Bluth is a genius, already kicking all kinds of balls in the animation genre before Disney did. I love Disney, but Bluth has some BIG cahones; dogs drinking, gambling and double-crossing each other, rats made super intelligent by animal testing, a young orphaned dinosaur leading his friends to Utopia while grieving the death of his mother. Heck, even "Anastasia" (a film I love by the way), took risks for just existing, and that was Bluth's attempt at being Disney! Yet, it is not only Disney that has suffered the rath of the unneeded sequel. 90% of Bluth's movies have had sequels, TV shows or both adapted from them, ALL without his input. Except for "Bartok: The Magnificent." "The Land Before Time" is the most known example, with 12 sequels and a show, and another sequel coming riding on the tailcoat of "Jurassic World." Many people of the 80s and 90s are aware of the "American Tail" franchise. Ditto "Secret of NIMH 2." Then there's the "All Dogs go to Heaven" franchise.OK, most people know there's a sequel, but there was also an Emmy winning show and TV movie. Also, a really fun PC game. Judge me.Why? Why do Bluth movies get exploited like this? I mean, I love Bluth and his work, but his movies weren't critical babies until "Anastasia" came along. I mean, they were well received, but made little money EXCEPT on home video... oh.ADGTH was one of the highest earning home video releases at the time, so it makes sense that somebody would take this unique little gem and milk all of its heavenly cloud juice. However, is the sequel, appropriately titled "All Dogs go to Heaven 2," with "Charlie's New Adventure" added in some cases, really bad? In my opinion... no. It's OK. Not great, but watchable.The story starts off in Heaven where we see Carface (Ernest Borginine) having a shady phone conversation, before heading off to the Guardian Angel crowning thingy for perfect angels. Here we see Charlie (Charlie Sheen), the lovable rogue who redeemed himself by putting a little girl's life before his own. In a clever allusion to the song "Let Me Be Surprised," Charlie exclaims he's bored with Heaven. When his best friend, Itchy (Dom DeLuise) arrives in the afterlife, he bemoans his boring angelic life. So it makes perfect sense when Gabriel's Horn falls from Heaven, that he (and a reluctant Itchy) volunteer to retrieve it.So after once again conning the Heavenly Whippet, who now has a name and is stupid as heck (Bebe Neuwirth), Charlie and Itchy are sent to Earth as ghosts to find the Horn, which has fallen because Carface, who for some reason got a medal for being top notch angel earlier, made a deal with devil-cat Red (George Hearn), who wants the Horn to open the Pearly Gates so he can capture all of Heaven's dogs and lock them in Alcatraz so he can make Heaven Hell, I guess? Charlie and Itchy end up at a club where Charlie is smitten with smexy Irish Setter, Sasha LeFlur (Sheena Easton). Being the Casanova that he is, Charlie attempts to put the moves on her, only he can't, because he's a ghost. So Charlie and Itchy meet Carface, who they don't know is still evil, find out he got a life collar from a friend, which, well, makes him alive. Cool concept. Charlie, despite Itchy's reservations, goes to this friend, gets them both a collar, and goes to swoon over Sasha, before the collar's power wears out the next day. Of course, the friend is Red disguised as a dog, who is going to use the collar to control Charlie into leading him to the Horn. Oh, and the Horn is forgotten... for now.As it turns out, Sasha is not interested in Shepherds and is looking after a runaway boy named David (Adam Wylie), who is feeling understandably gypped because his dad and stepmom are having a baby. So he runs off to become a magician. David thinks Charlie is his guardian angel, so Charlie, in order to impress his new boo, plays along. So in between looking for the Horn, helping the kid do magic tricks and getting him back home, defeating the evil devil cat thing and falling in love, plenty of stuff goes down.It's all entertaining enough, the acting and music are good, pretty damn good actually. The animation isn't as polished as the original, but it's serviceable for a sequel, despite the NUMEROUS errors. Carface is now a pansy, which sucks, but Red is fun enough. Itchy is still funny. Even though Sheen can't replace a role literally made for Burt Reynolds in mind, he does a good job. The story isn't too bad either. But why, why is it set in 1996 San Francisco when the original was set on the brink of WWII in New Orleans? How did Itchy live that long? Where's Anne Marie? (I get that little Judith Barsi was murdered before the original film was released, so I guess that was a nod of respect for her). Why does the film exist other than to make money? Why does Charlie trust Carface when he MURDERED HIM IN THE FIRST MOVIE???!!!! The original had a passion quite akin to The Lion King; yeah it was risqué but we have a story to tell and God damn you if you don't like it! ADGTH 2 is harmless enough and moderately entertaining, but when compared to the gritty classic like the original it's based on, it's like comparing wet kibble to dry. This sequel ain't Heavenly, but it isn't Hell. It resides in Limbo, and that's fine too.6/10.

Alright, I understand that this is a children's film. But I hated it just as much as a child than as an adult.Flaw #1: I'm not religious but in every religion heaven apparently has other animals, and people, so why is it depicted in the movie as a bunch of pink clouds full of flying cartoon dogs, nothing else? Where are all the people? Or is there a special heaven for just dogs? Did the dogs eat all the human angels? We'll never know.Flaw #2: this is a kids' movie, right? Well, the part with the yellow dog singing at the abandoned building (which has an uncanny resemblance to a strip club), while she dances suggestively and receives whistles and cheers from older male dogs was a little much. It appears to serve no purpose.Flaw #3: the lax security at the police station, where you can just wander in with a trio of dogs and have no one notice, and then have only one cop chase after you when it's realized that you're a wanted missing person.Flaw #4: cartoon dogs is bad enough, but there is really no need to incorporate all the preachy god stuff in there, it's pointless and a pathetic excuse of a movie.Flaw #5: The parents never put out an amber-alert for the runaway kid or anything? Wow, now that's responsible! How come when he was street performing to make money not one person realized he was the missing kid? All that being said, regardless of those issues the voice acting is really bad, all the dog-love garbage is in there pretty thick and the whole heaven concept is pretty lame. The excessive singing annoyed me the most, it was really bad and off-key. I don't recommend watching this film or showing it to your kids, it is a really pathetic movie.

I loved All Dogs go to Heaven so much that I went to see the sequel in the theater, and I can't remember being more disappointed by a movie. The story stank worse than an over-aged sack of manure. I mean, come on! How could Carface possibly imagine being able to get revenge on an animal so much bigger than him, no matter how angry he was. Plus depicting Satan as a CAT?!?! How cliché can you get? So much for the story. Is it any wonder that Don Bluth, Burt Reynolds, Melba Moore, and Vic Tayback wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole? The animation was absolutely wretched. The colors were all washed out, and I can't count how many times I was able to see through objects that were supposed to be solid. It had to be the worst animation I've ever seen! I usually like animated movies, but not this BOMB!

Of course it's nowhere near as good as the first, but it's not as bad as some of the other sequels.The one thing that sticks out the most, which I think makes this movie decent, is the music. The songs actually fit with the scene and they don't throw off the movie, and that's a good thing in my book. Something Disney needs to work on with their DTV garbage.One other thing I'm glad they didn't do was mention and/or have Anne Marie. It wouldn't feel right, and if you know what happened to Judith you might have an idea where I'm coming from. Plus David wasn't that bad of a character.