Numerous Disney films have gotten sequels over the years, most of them direct-to-video and almost all of them uniformly terrible. The Rescuers Down Under is the only one to be considered official Disney canon, and also the only one to be superior to its predecessor in every conceivable way. Gone is the stiff xerographic animation and musically sterile production of the original; Down Under is so relentlessly fun, adventurous and exciting that the original seems positively glacial by comparison.
While The Little Mermaid was still a bit of a transition from the post-Walt era to the Renaissance in terms of animation, Down Under is the first true display of what made Disney so great in the nineties: fluid animation, impeccable artwork, a restrained use of CGI, and cinematography that feels genuinely cinematic. The sequences of the golden eagle, Marahute, seem to exist chiefly to display the fantastic style of Disney's new order, and they succeed admirably: these sequences on their own possess more of a grand sense of exhilaration than some entire post-Walt films. Even the characters and environments returning from the first film seem entirely fresh and new, reimagined through the lens of Disney's new artistic paradigm.
And those returning characters are better than they ever were in the original film, thanks to a fantastically fun script with an emphasis on characterization. Bernard and Bianca emerge as far more active and interesting characters (partly because Down Under actually lets them do things), while their relationship actually gets some time to establish and develop. The objective of their mission, Cody, is essentially a male version of Penny, and while he's admittedly the least interesting character, he is at least proactive, evidently spending his time releasing animals caught by poachers. The villain McLeach, played with cackling relish by George C. Scott, is a far more effective antagonist than Medusa, being both more insidious (he's a poacher who gleefully sings about murdering animals) and actually having some legitimately funny scenes - plus he drives a vehicle that looks like he stole it off the set of Fury Road. Even the supporting cast are all memorable and full of charm and personality: Jake, the charismatic mouse equivalent of Crocodile Dundee; Wilbur, the albatross voiced by the always hilarious John Candy; Frank, the neurotic frill-necked lizard; Doctor Mouse, who apparently performs surgery with a chainsaw he calls the "epidermal tissue disruptor."
While The Rescuers is fairly well-known, The Rescuers Down Under remains one of Disney's least-remembered films, possibly because it was released in the middle of Disney's greatest run of films - it's immediately preceded by The Little Mermaid, and followed by Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King. While it doesn't quite reach the spectacular, visionary heights of any of those films, it's still a well-written, fun adventure film in it's own right. In short, it's everything The Rescuers should have been, but even better.
