This movie does contradict the first one as far as the origins of the Care Bears and the Care Bear Cousins goes. I won't deny that. However, if you look at "Part II" as a separate film, then it's a very good movie. I remember watching this in the early 80's (and fitting into its targeted demographic audience then), and absolutely loving it much more than the first movie (not that I didn't enjoy that one too, it's just that this one seemed to have a little something extra to it). Sure it's darker than the first one too, but perhaps maybe that's why it's so good. And it's dark in deeper kind of subtle way too (that kids may not fully understand, but could still be a bit scared of because of the atmosphere it gives off, and adults watching will surely get quicker as I have now watching this film again now in my mid-twenties) where you basically have a young girl making a deal with an evil spirit/demon in exchange for something else. Get the picture? But simply watching that as a child, sure as I said it may have been a little scary, but nothing traumatizing. In fact if anything it gave me another fantasy game I could play when I was that age. I can't tell you the number of times I used to pretend Dark Heart wanted to imprison me, have me help him capture the Care Bears, tried to make me turn over to his dark side, and other things like that etc. So this movie was also good for my imagination. And it's also got great emotional depth to it too. I used to watch it at least once a week.
Also Hadley Kay was the perfect choice for the voice of Dark Heart (I always thought so and I always will).
Now it's just too bad that they never made a soundtrack available. Sometimes I just want to hear Growing Up without watching the movie, as good as it is.
"What good is love and caring if it can't save her?"

I had read a few positive reviews of this film, and was truly surprised at how dreadful the whole thing was. Positioned as some cross between an AIDS-related story and some kind of "Ghost"/"Blithe Spirit" tale, this film can't always make it's mind up what it wants to be.
Simon and Mark are a gay couple who have an "open" relationship - Simon is able to have anonymous (though safe) sex on the side when he wants. Mark is HIV+ and he and Simon don't seem to have a sex life anymore. When Mark dies, Simon - who has made a habit of shutting off his emotions after being rejected years ago by his father - tries to erase his memory and just get on with being a bachelor. Not that his behavior before Mark's death was much different. But Mark returns in ghostly form and foils his various trysts, while getting Simon to open up and admit his true feelings.
Unfortunately, Simon is such a selfish SOB, it's impossible to feel any empathy toward him for most of the film. By the time he is supposed to be more sympathetic, it's too late to care. Mark, on the other hand, follows in Demi Moore's footsteps from "Ghost," by crying profusely throughout the movie.
There is a bizarre switch in tone after Mark returns. Suddenly we get some lame attempts at humor, a la the TV show "Bewitched." But that doesn't last long. Once Simon's emotional health is at stake, the whole thing becomes increasingly mawkish, with amateurish attempts to jerk at your heartstrings. The finale, with a gold-plated muscle-boy angel guiding a tearful Mark to heaven while a chastened, grief-stricken Simon waves goodbye is just stupefying, chiefly because it isn't intentionally funny.