Perhaps it wasn’t the most fair of circumstances for me to view this film right after reviewing Disney’s new modern-day classic Frozen, possibly one of the very best animated films of this century so far. Pretty much anything could look quite poor by comparison. However, I enjoyed this film. It isn’t the best pace, dialogue or plot-wise maybe, but it still features some nice colourful animation, good voiceovers and appealing characters. What baffled me a little bit was that the first film was quite obscure (and quite a long time ago), meaning that I felt that many young children that would like to see this, probably would not have seen (or heard of) the original. It would only really be us animation nuts who see EVERYTHING ANIMATED that would probably have a recollection of the original. Just before seeing this film, I remembered seeing The Reef 1 when it was released back in 2007 and I remembered thoroughly enjoying it at the time, despite many of its borrowed story points from other animated features, and I hoped for the same with the sequel. This film maybe doesn’t have as much plot (borrowed or original) as the first film, but it is still entertaining enough.
The Reef 2: High Tide picks up with Troy being released from human captivity by an innocent young shark Ronnie (voiced by Jamie Kennedy) and then returning to take revenge on Pi (this time voiced by Drake Bell) and destroy the Reef with his gang of sharks, while Ronnie puts on a disguise to gain the fishes’ trust and lull them into a false sense of security.
What was interesting about the first film that it was a relatively large cast for a film made by an obscure studio, and what is even more interesting is that a large portion of the cast returned for this film. They must have believed in the material. And to be fair, it’s not that bad at all. OK, the plot goes nowhere very slowly and is at parts quite cheesy but at least its entertaining enough for its short running time and should have the kids enchanted by the fantasy underwater world – and terrified by the large menacing sharks. To sum up, if you go without high expectations (ie. expecting razor-sharp dialogue, fantastic music etc.), it’s relatively good fun. So don’t go with high expectations and you may find yourself enjoying it.
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