Parent Movie Guide, Parental Site.com - Review: The Little Mermaid 2: Return to the Sea

	Film Title: The Little Mermaid 2: Return to the Sea		Best for ages: 4 and up.

	Movie Website: Click Here	Year Released: 2000	Rated: G (US)

SYNOPSIS
Ariel is now married and lives on land with her husband Prince Eric. Ariel has just given birth to a daughter which she has named Melody. But while on a trip out to sea to visit her father the evil sister of Ursula, Morgana rear her ugly head and almost feeds baby Melody to a shark. For her safety Ariel tells her father that she will stay on land with Melody until Morgana is found and jailed for her crimes. Years later Melody is much older and is much like her mother was when she was young. She is under the watch of Sebastian and Scuttle. But Melody has an infatuation with the sea and is always swimming in it against her mother rules and making Sebastian's stress level go though the roof. Melody finds a magic locket, the same one her mother had and it was to be her christening gift. Melody does not realize that it's the magic locket and that by using it she opened up a link to Morgana. Melody runs away to the sea and have her own adventure. She meets up with Morgana, who tells her to get King Triton magic trident. Morgana tells Melody that with the trident she can make all her dreams come true. But as a gift she turns Melody into a mermaid before she goes and steels the trident. Meanwhile she meets up with a penguin named Tip and a Walrus named Dash. But every creature in the sea is looking for her and even Ariel returns to the sea as a mermaid to look for her daughter and help defeat the evil Morgana before she is able to take over the ocean. Click Here
VIOLENCE/GRAPHIC CONTENT/language
Violence Sebastian and the Chief get into their cat and mouse chase game in the movie where the Chief chaises Sebastian with a butcher knife. A hammerhead Shark attacks Tip and Dash and a group of penguins, which they do away with by accidently dropping a piece of an iceberg on. Speaking of Icebergs, Morgana zaps a piece of ice off a glacier with the trident and almost kills Prince Eric and his crew aboard their boat. Sebastian is almost eaten by the Shark when he is turned back to his normal size. Tip and Dash manage to stop the shark from attacking them by tricking him into running into a ice wall where he is knocked out and loses all his teeth. King Triton is forced by Morgana by way of a fierce lighting like force to bow to her, but thanks to his granddaughter he quickly recovers and Triton frezzes Morgana in a block of ice and banishes her to the deaths of the ocean. Graphic Content Well the fact that Melody as a baby is about to be feed by Morgana to a shark is kind of scary for some kids, thank god the shark is turned into a tiny fish before anything bad happens. Morgana beats a fish on a stick as she offers it as a meal to Melody. Melody does steal King Triton's trident, but only being conned by Morgana who told her it was stolen from her by the King. Scuttle pulls on Morgana's hair and is hit by her when he does not succeed in making her give up. A big thing in the film is when Melody turns back into a human while trapped in an ice cave under water and almost drowns, but is saved by her friends just in time. Because of the dangers at the beginning of the film, Arial tells her father that as long as Morgana is in the sea and threatening Melody's life; Arial will not tell Melody who and where her mothers side of the family is from. Language A group of young kids call Melody strange. She is also made fun of for talking to sea creatures. Morgana lies a lot to Melody, and uses her to get what she wants out of her. King Trident gets angry over Melody's disappearance, and yells at his servants for not looking for her while they are preparing lunch for him. He bangs his fists on a table while expressing his anger. Flounder and the little shark have some world with another calling each other names like pipsqueak and the likes.
OVERALL VIEWS
I remember being in high school and going over my aunt and uncles house to watch my young cousins. At the time The Little Mermaid was a big hit on VHS and my young cousins watched it religiously. So going into this one I knew the story of the first film like the back of my own hand. This sequel is actually not half bad and does give the original film some justice with it's expanded storyline. The animation is not as great as the original film, but being a direct to DVD movie, it looks pretty good compared to many of the other direct to DVD videos Disney has released. It also has some great musical numbers as well. Not as good as the first film, but the score is still good with its hot musical numbers that I'm sure your kids will be singing along to in no time. Almost all of the character from the first film make an appearance in this one with the exception of Ursula. Sebastian is his usual self, while Flounder is now bigger and has a family of his own. Still the characters get together with Ariel again and help her search for her daughter. So its like a double adventure with the characters from the first film and the new characters introduced in this one. The special edition DVD has a some good features such as game and activities like "The Little Mermaid II Underwater Mer-Venture Challenge Game", The Little Mermaid II DVD Storybook; Narrated by Jodi Benson the women who is the voice of Ariel. There is also a "What Am I" Sea Creature Game. (My daughter enjoyed this one). There are also Music Videos which includes a new deleted song "Gonna Get My Wish" and plenty more, including trailers to upcoming Disney titles. The movie has a running time of seventy five minutes so it's not a drawn out movie where your children might lose interest because the film is to long. Overall, The Little Mermaid II is a cute little film, that does have a few minor things that may be of a concern, but everything is so overly animated that the violence and graphic content of the film is not as bad as I made it sound above. I honestly think this film is safer to watch to than the first film was, so with that said I think children ages four and up should be able to handle this one and enjoy it with no problems.
BUY THIS MOVIE.