Official Synopsis
Lady and Tramp’s mischievous pup Scamp is always in the doghouse. Now, an itch for a collar-free life and freedom is sending him on the ultimate adventure!
The first Lady and the Tramp film was about a dog finding a life with a family that ended up loving him. Oh, it had that love story involved with it, too. Now, Disney continues the story with Lady and Tramp’s son Scamp, who finds himself going in the opposite direction of the first film — from family to freedom (and hanging with junkyard dogs — which get him in trouble, of course). It’s a natural progression for the overall story arc of the characters. This story completely makes sense in the order of things.
The problem with this film isn’t with the story, it’s with how the characters are developed, treated and how their dialogue is written; there just doesn’t appear to be any emotion behind any of those elements. When you hear the dialogue being spoken by Tramp and Scamp, it just sounds canned. I know it’s a kid’s film, but I’ve seen better from Disney. The actors and script just don’t seem to be in it. It’s almost if this movie jumped into a flurry of sequels and got pushed through quickly. The script really makes the story seem bland and it never really gets going. I even watched my kids lose interest in this film quickly, so I know I’m not crazy.
One film comparison I could make here is with the Aristocats. You’ve got basically the same story structure where the characters go from having everything to having nothing, and struggling to survive. Scamp has a slightly more innocent structure to his story, but it still ends in the same points. The difference is that Aristocats developed their characters, featured some very strong dialogue and had the audience hooked through both of those elements. Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp’s Adventure really doesn’t hook you with those things, which makes it seem very weak.
Again, I think the overall story arc is where it needs to be, but you could tell that the dialogue just seemed like a secondary item.
It’s a shame because Scamp could have been a really cool character.
Story and characters aside, the bright spot with this release is the very beautiful HD transfer. They did a very good job with bringing this to Blu-ray. You get very clean, crisp colors that don’t show a bit of graininess or compression issues. I know that this movie is a bit younger in comparison to other movies recently released onto Blu-ray, Aristocats for example, but still it looks sharp. I commend Disney for giving this a very good HD treatment. It’s certainly one of the stronger points to the release.
As for the audio, it’s just as clean and clear as the video. You get it coming to you in 5.1 DTS-HD. Very sharp stuff that sounds good through a proper speaker setup.
As for the special features of this release, here’s what you’re looking at:
– Puppy Trivia Tracks
– Sing-Along Songs
– 3 Bonus Shorts – Starring Pluto
– The Making of Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp’s Adventure
– Audio Commentary
Considering the film, this is actually a good set of features. The bonus shorts will definitely entertain the kiddos in the household. The sing-along songs are solid, as well as the puppy trivia. The ‘making of’ featurette is good and the audio commentary is what you think it would be. I’m not sure kids will love the audio commentary, but parents might find it fascinating.
