The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure

Director: Roy Allen Smith
Writers: John Ludin, John Loy, Dev Ross
Producer: Roy Allen Smith
Cast: Scott McAfee, Candace Hutson, Kenneth Mars
Country: USA
Year of production: 1994
Reviewed from: UK VHS

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s Don Bluth was pretty much the only viable alternative to Disney when it came to feature-length animation. From The Secret of NIMH in 1982 to Titan AE in 2000, he directed eleven animated features, including The Land Before Time for Universal/Amblin in 1988. This straight-to-video sequel was released six years later, a few months after The Return of Jafar became the first DTV sequel to a theatrically released animated feature. Bluth was not involved.

In the original (which I haven't seen) five baby dinosaurs led their respective herds into the Great Valley, somewhere where they would be safe from predators. This is of course an ecologically unsound move since without predation the populations of the herbivorous species would outgrow the capacity of the area to feed them, and without any means of escape from the isolated valley - the only pass is blocked off by rockfalls - the result would be mass starvation. But let's not worry about that because there are far bigger moral dilemmas in this film.

The little dinos are inquisitive brontosaurus Littlefoot, bossy triceratops Cera, nervous pterodactyl Petrie (Petrie speak ungrammatically and always refer to himself in the third person), cute anatasaurus Ducky and bulky stegosaurus Spike who never speaks and is the dinosaur equivalent of 'the fat kid.' For some reason which is probably explained in the first movie, Spike has been adopted by Ducky's family; similarly, Littlefoot is being raised by his grandparents.

In LBT2, the dinos get into trouble attempting to cross some quicksand and have to be rescued by their parents. Fed up with being treated like babies, when they spot two oviraptors (crafty Ozzy and thick Strut) stealing an egg from Ducky's parents' nest, they decide to apprehend the villains themselves. Chasing Ozzy and Strut causes a rockfall which opens a path to the outside. The egg gets passed from oviraptors to dino-babies and back, eventually disaappearing; what the little dinos recover and bring back to the valley is an egg which is the same colour but, when sneaked back into the nest, is clearly far, far too big.

Undaunted, Littlefoot and pals decide to incubate the egg themselves, which they somehow manage, but when it hatches - quelle surprise - they find themselves presented with a baby Tyrannosaurus rex. Initially frightened, they decide that they can look after him and name him Chomper (although it mostly sounds like 'Chopper' when characters say it). Herein lies the unsubtle and frankly not-very-well-handled attempt at morality in the film. Meat-eaters ('sharp-teeth' in dino-speak, which gives some idea of how anodyne the whole thing is) are banned from the Great Valley, but the dino-babies have brought one inside. But should they fear him? He's only a baby and he is dependent on them. On the other hand, what is he going to eat?

There is a story to be told about tolerance for those with a different lifestyle, but put into this situation it just doesn't work because the idea falls apart when that lifestyle specifically requires 'the other' to kill members of one's own group. The little dinos have every right to fear Chomper because in order for him to survive he will need to kill and eat their own kind. Other animated films which have dealt with the moral aspect of carnivores, such as the excellent Ice Age, have a character agreeing not eat his/her friends but remaining a carnivore. But the Great Valley is a self-contained ecosystem where all the herbivores live together as one big happy herd. The introduction of even a single carnivore threatens that ecosystem and all the individuals within it.

Littlefoot, Cera and pals should not fear Chomper because he is different, or because they assume that he will be dangerous, they should fear him because he is dangerous and has no other option but to be dangerous.

Anyway, a few life lessons are learned, there is some more comedy schtick involving the two oviraptors, including a scene where they are frightened of a giant T rex shadow which turns out to be Chomper. Then two adult T rex enter the valley, leading to some almost exciting fights. Well, of course they are Chomper's mum and dad and they eventually help Littlefoot and co to send the oviraptors packing. Then, having collected their son, they return to the outside and the adult herbivores engineer another rockfall to once again isolate the Great Valley. Where, as we have seen, they will all starve to death in a few years because there is a fixed amount of vegetation but nothing to stop their population increasing exponentially.

This is a weak film and I understand that the original is not so bad. Candace Hutson (Cera) is the only returning voice artist from the original and she stayed for the next two sequels, as did Scott McAfee (Littlefoot) and Heather Hogan (Ducky). Jeff Bennett (Johnny Bravo) as Petrie and Rob Paulsen (Pinky in Pinky and the Brain), who is credited as Spike though I don't recall the stegosaurus ever saying anything, continued on through all the sequels which at the last count had reached ten, meaning that there are more Land Before Time films than Star Trek movies!

In recent years, the US releases of the films have tended to drop the number which makes a certain kind of sense if there is no specific order to them or development from one to another, although the numbers remain on the UK releases. In order, the eleven movies are:

• The Land Before Time (1988)
• The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure (1994)
• The Land Before Time III: The Time of the Great Giving (1995) - ie. the Christmas one!
• The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists (1996)
• The Land Before Time V: The Mysterious Island (1997) - which brought back Chomper, resulting in a rather curious double-bill re-release of parts II and V...
• The Land Before Time VI: The Secret of Saurus Rock (1998)
• The Land Before Time VII: The Stone of Cold Fire (2000)
• The Land Before Time VIII: The Big Freeze (2001)
• The Land Before Time IX: Journey to the Big Water (2002)
• The Land Before Time X: The Great Longneck Migration (2003)
• The Land Before Time XI: Invasion of the Tinysauruses (2004)

Bennett and Paulsen also voice the two oviraptors and Paulsen provides Chomper's baby gurgles. Linda Gary (Aunt May in the 1990s Spider-Man cartoon and its spin-off DTV feature Sins of the Fathers, also in Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night) is Littlefoot's grandmother and no less than Kenneth Mars (Young Frankenstein) is his grandfather; Mars continues in the role to this day but Gary is only in parts II-IV, though in her case it's because she died in 1995. John Ingle (Skeeter, RoboCop 2) and Tress MacNeille are also in the cast (MacNeille does voices for The Simpsons and played Lucille Ball in the video for 'Weird Al' Yankovic's early hit 'Ricky'!).

Director/producer Roy Allen Smith and co-producer Zahra Dowlatabadi were also responsible for Part III and Part IV which probably explains why these three films are some sort of loose trilogy, at least in terms of cast and crew. Of the credited writers, John Ludin worked on LBT II and III, Dev Ross worked on LBT II, III and IV as well as The Return of Jafar, and John Loy worked on LBT II, III, V, VI, VIII and X plus the Hercules/Xena animated movie, Alvin and the Chipmunks meet Frankenstein and Alvin and the Chipmunks meet the Wolfman!

Although there were (I understand) no songs in the original, this film has a few, mostly written by sisterly singing trio The Roches. And not to put to fine a point on it, they are awful (although to be fair, they were the only parts of the film when my guest reviewer, 18-month-old TF Simpson, actually paid attention). The rest of the music is by Michael Tavera (Honey We Shrunk Ourselves, Cinderella II, Beethoven). Most of the other names in the credits are Korean as the (thoroughly unremarkable) animation was all done by Akom Productions Co Ltd (which also does animation for The Simpsons). Akom’s President Nelson Shin is credited as ‘animation producer’; he directed Transformers: The Movie and allegedly designed the lightsabre effects in Star Wars!

MJS rating: C-

review originally posted 16th June 2005

Cyborg Cop II

Director: Sam Firstenberg
Writer: John Stevens
Producer: Danny Lerner
Cast: David Bradley, Morgan Hunter, Jill Pierce
Year of release: 1994
Country: USA/South Africa
Reviewed from: UK video (Columbia Tristar)

The second adventure for rogue cop Jack Ryan (Bradley) isn’t nearly as satisfying as the first, and the only attempt at continuity is Ryan’s adopted son, Frankie. This time out, the cyborg in question starts as Jesse Starkraven (Hunter), a murderous crime lord who kills Ryan’s partner but is then sprung from Death Row by a covert government organisation, the Anti-Terrorist Group. Starkraven (rechristened ‘Spartacus’) is one of five killers turned into cyborgs for nefarious military purposes, who escape their lab and hole up in a cyborg development facility in Iowa, which is disguised as a power station. Their plan is to increase their number and eventually subjugate humanity - very ambitious. But Jack Ryan is on their trail.

Despite plenty of huge explosions and some well-done fist- and gun-fights, the sequel just doesn’t have the charm of the original. John Stevens’ script (from a story by director Firstenberg) is reasonable and, combined with Bradley’s performance, keeps the character of Ryan consistent. He’s a likable and charismatic action hero. The female lead is the deputy director of the ATG, Liz McDowell (Pierce) but she teams up with Ryan too late for any real chemistry to develop.

Cyborg Cop II misses the exotic locale of the first film (both were shot in South Africa) and it misses the camp villainy of John Rhys-Davies. It’s mainly saved by Bradley - in a subgenre where a World Kickboxing Association belt is often deemed more important than acting ability, he’s a real treasure. Of course, there is no actual cyborg cop in Cyborg Cop II, which in America had the more relevant title Cyborg Soldier. On both sides of the Atlantic, the video sleeve actually showed the cyborg from the first film!

The completely unconnected Cyborg Cop III followed a year later.

MJS rating: C
review originally posted before November 2004

Club Death

Director: Jake West
Writer: Jake West
Producer: Simon Hunter
Cast: Mark Leake, Christopher Adamson, Louise Edwards
Country: UK
Year of release: 1994
Reviewed from: Razor Blade Smile DVD

Although I was aware that Jake West (Evil Aliens) and Simon Hunter (Mutant Chronicles) knew each other - indeed, they each provided an uncredited radio voice for the other’s first feature - it was still a surprise to discover that this half-hour short, which was Jake’s graduation film, was actually produced by Simon. Furthermore it stars the guy who subsequently produced Simon’s debut feature, Lighthouse.

Club Death was included on the 2-DVD special edition of Razor Blade Smile in 2004, giving us all a chance to see Jake’s first serious foray into film-making (a clip from one of his earlier student films, A Bizarre Short Film About Death..., is included in the documentary on the RBS special edition). And crikey, it’s weird. Frankly, it’s more than weird, it’s obtuse. But here’s a handy synopsis which I found on the internet:

James Clover, killed at his own fancy dress party, finds himself with a choice between joining the Afterlife Corporation and reliving his life again or joining Club Death and accepting that his time is over.

Well, that’s more than I could work out from watching the film, to be honest. The black and white opening sequence shows various folks partying and James Clover (Mark Leake) upstairs committing adultery with a young lady played by Caroline Crampton-Thomas (now a barrister!). He complains of deja vu and then a figure dressed as Death enters the room and shoots him.

After that it all gets very surreal, albeit in colour, as Clover finds himself in Purgatory where he meets Magus, played by Jake West regular Christopher Adamson, the bastard offspring of Christopher Lee and Terry-Thomas. Magus (who may even be Satan himself) works for something called the Afterlife Corporation (ALC) who produce a thing called the Karma Kard. This is advertised using some very early computer graphics and inserted into Clover’s body through a slot-shaped wound.

Clover returns to Earth and we see the same adultery/shooting scene again but with some of the dialogue slightly different, after which Clover returns to Purgatory. There he once again meets not only Magus but also an elderly vicar who was previously seen at the party (Stanley Lloyd, who was in McVicar and two episodes of 2.4 Children) and a gorgeous, Gaiman-esque, female Death (Louise Edwards, who changed her name to Louisa Moore between this and Razor Blade Smile and now seems to have disappeared).

It all ends up with the (thoroughly unsurprising) identity of Clover’s killer being revealed while Death dances with and somehow tricks Magus. Precisely what is what and who is who is something that’s impossible to determine as everything seems to be a metaphor for something else. It’s a very student-y student film.

However, it’s also a very confident and extraordinarily well made student film with excellent contributions from the future Razor Blade Smile creative team of cinematographer Jim Solan, production designer Neil Jenkins and costume designer Dena Costello plus make-up artist Claire Le Vesconte who subsequently did Lighthouse and now works on Harry Potter movies. In typical Jake West fashion, everything you can think of is thrown into the mix, in both stylistic and narrative terms, with an elan that demonstrates a love of, and an understanding of, cinema in its most creative form. I suppose it all works - because I don’t think it’s meant to be straightforward.

While the actual story is an enigma, the film is carried by its directorial style and three performances from the leads which are considerably stronger than one often sees in student films. Adamson uses the RADA voice familiar from RBS and it’s quite a surprise in the Making of Club Death/RBS documentary to hear him talk in his normal London accent.

Mark Leake had a few other acting roles, including a BBC radio dramatisation of The Hound of the Baskervilles, but may have returned to his original career as an investment banker. Sound recordist Simon Price went on to work in various audio roles on Chicken Run, Alien vs Predator, Batman Begins and The Dark while boom handler Nils Petter Midtun is now a DoP on documentaries in his native Norway. Cameron Kerr, who provided the computer graphics, has worked on top games such as Tomb Raider and Carmageddon. There there’s special effects bods Nick Rideout and Richard Thomas who share a credit for ‘Armourer and pyrotechnics’; the former’s CV now includes The Descent, Cold and Dark and the remake of The Quatermass Experiment, while the latter, after constructing the eponymous model building for Lighthouse, went on to ply his trade on Alien vs Predator, Batman Begins and Mutant Chronicles.

Costello, Hunter and Jenkins are all extras in the party scene along with a chap named Edward Lynden-Bell who has now relocated to New Zealand where he has directed a feature called The Last Great Snail Chase. The music was composed and performed by Jake Knowles who also appears as Jimi Hendrix.

Club Death, which was premiered at Raindance in London, was also included on a German 2-disc edition of Evil Aliens along with its own nine-minute Making Of (which may simply be re-edited material from the Slices of Life documentary on the Razor Blade Smile disc).

MJS rating: B
review originally posted 4th August 2008

The Black Cat

Director: Rob Green
Writer: Rob Green, Clive Perrott
Producer: Sarah Carr
Cast: Clive Perrott, David Kincaid, Alison Morrow
Country: UK
Year of release: 1994
Reviewed from: UK TV broadcast

Edgar Allan Poe’s classic story has been adapted for the screen numerous times but rarely so literally and simply. Rob Green’s 18-minute film is basically one long monologue of an unnamed prisoner (hair and make-up designed to make him look like Poe himself) recounting the story, as written, to a priest.

But what could be a very static and frankly dull movie is turned instead into a tremendously atmospheric and creepy tale. The prisoner is shackled but the chains that hold him are very long and stretch across and around the cell. The silent Catholic priest (who we don’t even see until several minutes in) sits in a strange chair that looks both skeletal and insectoid. His scarlet cloak and hat are lit to look almost like the flames of hell.

As the prisoner becomes more animated, parts of the story - such as the discovery of an image of a cat on a wall - are enacted within the cell, with subsidiary characters entering from the shadows or appearing as required. It’s a daring conceit to open up the story at key points without ever leaving the cell set or the relentless monologue, but it works wonderfully. The title creature is only seen briefly, once, for no more than a second in a few frames of animation provided by, interestingly, Clive Dawson (who would go on to write Green’s feature debut, The Bunker).

Co-writer Clive Perrott carries the film, oscillating between terror and intensity in appropriately Poe-esque fashion, but I think the key to its success is the combination of Tricia Stephenson’s production design and Simon Margetts’ cinematography. Australian-born Stephenson was art director on Vadim Jean’s Clockwork Mice and also worked on some of the sets for Pervirella. Margetts was a camera operator on Mary Reilly, Project: Shadowchaser and Batman Begins.

David Kincaid (who was in the Doctor Who story ‘Warrior’s Gate’) is suitably stoic as the priest and Alison Morrow as the wife is the only other featured actor. Perrott (who is also credited as associate producer, along with Green) also starred in Green’s film The Trick. He has turned up in episodes of Casualty and Carman, apparently had some uncredited role in The Return of the King, has provided voices for various anime things and was in a stage production of The Haunting of Hill House. He was last heard of in the London cast of The Lion King where he was ‘standby Scar and Pumbaa’.

Released to festivals in 1994, The Black Cat was shown on Channel Four at Christmas 1995 and was subsequently included on the DVD of The Bunker. I bumped into Rob Green at Frightfest 2005 when he told me that he was working on the script for Dog Soldiers 2.

MJS rating: A
review originally posted 23rd November 2005