Our family loved the charming first movie but this movie is just awful. The negative reviews already written recap the problems very well: Poor directing, plodding story, predictable outcomes, etc. Ghastly. Three additional criticisms not yet mentioned.
(1) Very confusing clothing and haircuts. Who would cast farm kids during WWII to wear polo shirts? That and Vince's mop haircut gave the feeling in the opening scene that this was a modern film with elements from American suburbs.
(2) On which planet does a fun children's film feature villains who extort characters with deadly threats of removing both kidneys...and worse? I'm not taking this film seriously but that's just too macabre.
(3) During the introduction to special features, Emma Thompson says that this is "An entirely new film." That is just so not true. Indeed, an early scene sets you up to expect to see a duplicate scene copied from the first movie. You get fooled but then a few seconds later you see the scene you expected anyway. The only thing original to this movie compared to the first is that pigs fly.
There are positive elements to this movie--beautiful country scenes, nice camera work, good acting by lesser characters--but not enough to warrant spending precious time to watch it.
(1) Very confusing clothing and haircuts. Who would cast farm kids during WWII to wear polo shirts? That and Vince's mop haircut gave the feeling in the opening scene that this was a modern film with elements from American suburbs.
(2) On which planet does a fun children's film feature villains who extort characters with deadly threats of removing both kidneys...and worse? I'm not taking this film seriously but that's just too macabre.
(3) During the introduction to special features, Emma Thompson says that this is "An entirely new film." That is just so not true. Indeed, an early scene sets you up to expect to see a duplicate scene copied from the first movie. You get fooled but then a few seconds later you see the scene you expected anyway. The only thing original to this movie compared to the first is that pigs fly.
There are positive elements to this movie--beautiful country scenes, nice camera work, good acting by lesser characters--but not enough to warrant spending precious time to watch it.