 2006's Curious George was an old-school throwback of an animated kids movie that was positively delightful whenever its title character was doing monkey* stuff and incredibly conventional when it came to the three-act story that drives the movie. The good news is that the movie's direct-to-video sequel, Curious George 2: Follow that Monkey, possesses most of the considerable charms of the first film, while also being partially subject to the same criticisms. However, like the first film, Curious George 2 is also charming enough that it easily overwhelms most of the nitpicks I would normally have about its flaws.
At the start of Curious George 2, George and his friend Ted (a.k.a. the Man with the Yellow Hat) have settled into life in New York City. Mr. Bloomsbury, the ancient and kindly director of the museum where Ted works, is about to retire, and has selected Ted as his heir apparent. All Ted needs to do is pass an interview with the museum's board of directors and a career of fundraising, curator-wrangling, management of an unruly and ungrateful public, and occasional scholarship is his**. When the pair (and Ted's woefully neglected girlfriend Maggie) take a break from Ted's planning to go to see a magic show, George meets Kayla, a baby elephant whose terrible homesickness prevents her from doing her job very well as a magician's assistant/stage prop. George soon gets the idea to bring Kayla across the country to the California animal shelter where the rest of Kayla's family lives. Before you know it, Ted and George have become America's Most Wanted elephant-nappers, while Ted stresses out over his inability to prepare for the big board meeting.
 Curious George 2 is a rarity: a technically accomplished hand-drawn animated movie for children that resolutely refuses to become "edgy" or "hip" or whatever it is that Hollywood types think they're doing when they fill kids movies with adult pop culture references and jokes about bodily functions. This is a singular kids movie with a monkey as the lead character that does not contain a single poop flinging joke. Furthermore, the animation in the film is nearly as smooth and eye-poppingly beautiful as that of the original film, with gentle shading and lighting effects giving the hand-drawn characters a pleasing roundness and feeling of weight. The character animation is top-notch, as it has to be to ensure that a lead character who can't talk can really carry the film. Like its predecessor, the movie is worth the price of admission for pretty much any scene that has George in it doing monkey stuff, and George and Kayla together engage in truly adorable antics. The scene when the pair meet and become friends is simply marvelous to watch, communicating everything it needs to purely with body language (with one extremely non-human body at that). Everything is also nicely reinforced by the background music and the grunting, hooting, trumpeting vocalizations that the pair can manage. As in the first movie and the excellent PBS Kids series, Frank Welker's vocalizations as George is yet another in a long line of performances that demonstrate why he is one of the best in the voice acting business.
The soundtrack is clearly meant to evoke the Jack Johnson songs that were the surprise success story of the first film, and the music by Carbon Leaf and the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson succeeds pretty well at duplicating Johnson's laid-back style. The movie also manages to slip in quite a few laughs that will be a lot funnier to the adults in the audience than the kids; keep an eye out for the characters in a video police line up and at Ted's list of ideas for the museum. It's also rather amusing to watch jaded New Yorkers failing to notice a monkey riding a baby elephant walking through Grand Central Station, which is hilarious for its essential accuracy.
 Unfortunately, unlike the 11-minute episodes of the delightful TV show, Curious George 2 has to have a more substantial story driving the action, and this is the movie's biggest weakness. While the movie is really about George, it tries to use the much less interesting Man with the Yellow Hat as its main plot engine. This means that he's the one who has to Learn a Lesson between the start of the movie and the finish, but I don't think the lesson he needs to learn is quite clear enough, nor is the reason why the events he goes through teach it to him. The needs of the plot also require him to act so insensitively to Maggie that it borders on cruelty, and almost makes him unsympathetic as a result. Maggie herself is even less of a presence in this movie than she was in the first, and probably could have been cut from the film without much real impact. Finally, the plot all seems to hinge on the kinds of coincidences and misunderstandings that only happen in sitcoms and kids films, and the Inspector Clouseau-like "Danno" Wolfe (voiced by Jamie Kennedy) won't be too funny for anyone over the age of six. Luckily, I suspect the six-year olds will find him hilarious, and will also probably not notice too many of these weaker elements of the film.
Curious George 2 gets a wonderfully crisp anamorphic widescreen DVD (more than I can say for the original film, which is most readily available in cropped full-frame at the usual big box retailers). The 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack doesn't give the surround speakers or subwoofer much of a workout, but which reproduces the music wonderfully. Alternate tracks are in Spanish and French, with subtitles in all 3 languages. The best bonus features on the disc are two new episodes of the Curious George TV show: "A Monkey's Duckling," where a baby duck accidentally imprints on George, and "George's Super Subway Adventure," where crossed signals and missed connections lead to a grand underground adventure when George and the Man with the Yellow Hat try to take the subway to the zoo. These episodes are also the first I've seen on DVD or broadcast that are in anamorphic widescreen, although it's a bit puzzling why the opening credits play during the first and the closing credits play during the other, with no "continuous play" to piece the two together. There is also a "Cross Country Caper" game and a music video for the Brian Wilson song "Hold On, Here We Go," along with wallpapers and coloring pages on the DVD-ROM portion of the disc.
In the end, Curious George 2: Follow that Monkey is the sort of gentle, harmless kids entertainment that is too rare these days. It may not be terribly challenging, but George is such an appealing character that his animated antics by themselves can provide sufficient entertainment value. The addition of two new episodes of the TV show are easily enough to seal the deal. It's a charming package that is sure to please the young and the young at heart.
* = To placate the Pedantic Primate Patrol out there, yes I know that George has no tail and is therefore some sort of chimpanzee and not a monkey. However, since the PPP was apparently not around to inform Margret and H.A. Rey of their mistake when they published the original book in 1941, I will opt to conform to their artistic license and a monkey George shall remain.
** = My wife has worked in or with museums for much of her professional career, so I'm afraid my inside knowledge of how they work pretty ensures that I can't take that aspect of the movie's plot without a bit of a jaundiced eye.
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