Entertaining but...

Rating: Null/10 (31 July 2001)

It starts off very well and for the most part, this movie moves along at a very decent pace ALMOST the whole time. Velasques is a intriguing villainess and Weisz charming as heroine. They have also supplied this movie with a lot (and I do mean A LOT) of computer-animated images. Most of them are very impressive (like the wall of water in a ravine), but some fall flat and look fake. A reviewer referred to this movie as "Brendan and the 101 computer-images" and it's a fairly accurate description. It's a good, almost old-fashioned, matinee-movie where only a few images may be unsettling for a minor. However, I got a slightly dizzy feeling watching this. In a sequel you always know that they are going to do something more spectacular according to the "bigger is better"-philosophy. And here they have thrown in almost everything imaginable and after a while I found myself saying "oh, please. Not that too!". The balloon-ships arrival was such a case. They should have cut some things out and left a more tightwoven plot, because I found the film just a bit too long. Otherwise I have nothing bad to say about this. All this movie wants is to entertain and that it does! The actors do their job fairly well, but take a back-seat to all the spectacular images and effects. I liked the first movie better, but as sequels go this is not a bad one.