I am not the best person to be reviewing "Curious George 2", as my children have grown and I only watched it because I am a bit of a nut! It turns out I've seen and reviewed nearly all of Jerry Lewis' movies...except for voicework he did on this particular film. So, being a completist, I decided to get this DVD from Netflix...and it was pleasant family entertainment but certainly not something normal adults would want to watch on their own.

One important thing you should know is that this film isn't very much like the original H. A. Rey Curious George storybooks. While the characters look kind of the same, they are rubbery looking and act quite different. Instead of George constantly getting into trouble, this version finds George able to seemingly understand signs, what people say and more. He also chatters CONSTANTLY...something is annoying after a while and I think they way overdid this aspect of the movie.

As for the animation, I said it has a rubbery look and this isn't meant as any sort of complaint. The quality of the animation is a bit better than an average made for TV cartoon from the 2000s.

The story finds the Man in the Yellow Hat to be very compulsive about work...to the point where he ignores his girlfriend and, to a lesser extent, George. When she confronts him, the Man is a bit clueless and thinks she only wants him to pay attention to George. And, to make the monkey happy, he takes George to see a magic show...because an elephant friend of George's is in the act.

George can see that his elephant friend is unhappy and he somehow KNOWS to kidnap the friend and take the elephant to California to be with his family. How he knows this, well...don't question...it's just a kids movie. Somehow the Man in the Yellow Hat ends up tagging along and soon folks think he's kidnapped the elephant and he's now a wanted man. Is there any way for them to extricate themselves from this mess?

This is pleasant, undemanding direct to home video style programming. Nothing brilliant but enjoyable enough for any adults forced to watch it along with their kids.

Considering my son specifically picks this movie over the first tells me it's a great film. There's a good chance that he's used to the voice of the man in the yellow hat as he's the voice actor from the TV show. He also loves trains so that could be other reason. For me the animation is very good and while I found the character voiced by Jamie Kennedy to be off putting I still dug the movie. The soundtrack is pretty good for a direct to video movie. I don't think I would've seen this in the theater but it was a great deal for $10. Based on the fact that the rest of the Curious George videos released have been TV show episode collections ... I have a hunch that there won't be another movie released for some time to come.

The books are great, the series is just as good and the first Curious George was a big surprise and in a good way. This sequel is perhaps a little lacking but that doesn't make it a bad movie, in fact while the film isn't amazing and it doesn't try to be it is quite nice. The animation like the first is nice and colourful, and thankfully doesn't go into shoddy Saturday-morning-standard territory, while the soundtrack is sweet and bright. The film also goes along at a good pace and helped by the cute characters especially George(as adorable as ever) and Kayla the baby elephant and Norton Virgien's direction. Plus the voice acting is solid, hearing Tim Curry's voice again always gets another tick in my book. However, the film is too short and could have done with more scenes. Also while the story is charming and George's antics will delight anybody, it can be a little predictable and bland too, while the dialogue occasionally falls a little flat despite some admittedly amusing and touching moments. That said though, overall, it is a nice, charming movie. 7/10 Bethany Cox