Africa 2: The Adventure in the Kupatana Valley (1988)

***Africa II: The Adventure in the Kupatana Valley*** is a 1988 American direct-to-video animated action-adventure musical film directed by Phil Robinson. It is the second installment and a sequel to the 1982 American animated film *Africa*, which is produced by 20th Century Fox. It was released six years after the original, and was the first in the series to be a direct-to-video production.

## Plot:

Lenny, Cindy, Dottie, Patrik, and Stan live a carefree life in the Kupatana Valley under their families' watchful eyes. One day, the gang attempts to get to the tall grass to play, but land in quicksand surrounding it. The adults rescue them and chastise them for their recklessness. The next night, the children have a secret meeting and decide to prove their bravery and maturity by venturing into the Mysterious Beyond, a location outside the Valley that is inhabited by predators. Before they leave, they notice two eggnappers, Omar and Slade, stealing an egg from the nest of Dottie's mother. The children pursue the intruders into the Mysterious Beyond. An ensuing landslide damages the Great Wall that surrounds the Valley and protects it from the predators, and the stolen egg rolls safely back to the nest, but the group does not notice this in the confusion.

In the Mysterious Beyond, the group discover another, larger egg and mistake it for the original. The gang transports the egg into the Valley, and despite finding the original egg back in Dottie's nest, they decide to hatch it. The gang doesn't realize it's from another nest. The egg eventually hatches, revealing a baby lion. Although Lenny's friends are frightened off, Lenny quickly realizes that the baby lion is not yet dangerous, and decides to raise the newly christened "Charlie" as his parent. This task proves difficult as Charlie is not an herbivore, and Lenny has no experience raising a child. Omar and Slade appear to exact revenge on the group for foiling their earlier theft, but are driven away by Charlie's enlarged shadow, which they mistake for that of an adult lion. The rest of the gang meets Charlie and they accept him as part of the group until he hungrily bites Cindy by accident. The group's knee-jerk reaction causes Charlie to run off in tears. The others follow him to a smoking mountain, where Omar and Slade attempt once more to attack the children, but are stopped when the mountain's eruption sends them plummeting down a canyon. After the group escapes, they encounter two adult lions, who have managed to enter the Valley through the opening in the Great Wall. The whole Kupatana Valley population drives the lions off, and the children make it back to their families, but Charlie feels left out and runs away again.

The adults inquire as to how the lions entered the Valley, prompting the children to explain the events that resulted in the landslide. The adults set off to put together a plan to close the opening for good, telling the children to stay behind. Lenny runs to the forest to find Charlie. After finding him, they are chased and cornered by the two lions. Charlie roars at them, and they recognize him as their son and leave with him. Lenny is then kidnapped by Omar and Slade, who plan to throw him off the Great Wall. Charlie hears Lenny screaming and leads his parents to Lenny's location. Charlie's parents rescue Charlie from an attempted intervention, and inadvertently do the same thing for Lenny by chasing Omar and Slade back into the Mysterious Beyond. Lenny bids Charlie farewell as he follows his parents, and he returns to the Valley to assist the adults in sealing up the entrance between the Valley and the Mysterious Beyond. Following his experiences, Lenny tells his grandparents that being young is not so bad after all, but decides he still looks forward to growing up.

## Cast:

* Joey Lawrence as Lenny (He was voiced by Corey Haim in the original film.)
* Tiffany Brissette as Cindy (She returns as her role, the only one from the original film to do so.)
* Natasha Lyonne as Dottie
* Tom Kenny as Patrik/Omar (He was voiced by Ken Samson in the original film.)
* Jess Harnell as Stan/Slade/Charlie
* Robert Guillaume as Grandpa Elephant
* Marcella Lowery as Grandma Elephant
* Grey DeLisle as Patrik's Mother/Dottie's Mother/Aoudad
* Maurice LaMarche as Narrator/Daddy Tim