Great Sequel.

Rating: 6/10 (22 May 2001)

Often I visit these pages for different movies and find it disheartening to see so many critics not being fair, they either say "Pathetic, Terrible" or "Best Film Ever, A Must See"
Well, I hope to give you a balanced understanding of the film as I saw it. The film overall is very good, the sequel follows pretty close to the original scene set out in the first movie and so fairs well with those who have seen the first whilst still maintaning enough material so that viewers who have not seen the first can enjoy the film.
The Acting is not perfect but is still put accross well. I agree with some of the comments posted here, that the child does not fit with the characters and plotlines, there should have been some development with the main characters' relationship with each other before a family was introduced, especially if they are releasing a third!
Sadly though the film falls into the tired stereotypical view of a sequel, where the writer has not spent enough time in developing the plot so that each event affects the relationship between all characters. As a result the characters appear flat and do not relate very well with the audience. However this is still no where near as bad as some of the sequels I have seen before, like the terrible regurgitation that Disney's "Dinosaur" is to Don Bleuth's "The Land Before Time"
If there is one word to describe the plot in this movie, the word would be "Linear"
I will add a bit more though and talk about the SFX for a moment, generally the sfx were good but in the last scene when the Scorpion King appears I laughed at how terrible that effect was, it seemed to me that they wanted to finnish this scene as quickly and as cheaply as possible(Perhaps their budget ran out?) It was terribly unconvincing, but that is not to say that it is easy to do - it takes a lot of skill and I always respect that no matter how unconvincing the effect.
My vote for this film is 6/10 as it was enjoyable and entertaining but lacked the proper depth that is needed to make a good film.