Niko 2: Little Brother, Big Trouble (2012)

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The real charm of the first Niko movie was the weasel character that with irreverent lines made the somewhat soppy story enjoyable. I especially liked the weasel's song and dance routine.The sequel, unfortunately, as sequels tend to go, reduces on the charm and increases on the cheese.Still, for parents with children, especially those from a broken home, this is not a despicable movie. The characters are on the most part likable and their motives understandable.Still, I would advise viewers to watch the first instalment first, before engaging with this one, since it explains much of the needed backstory, including the mesmerising weasel performance.

This has recently been on SKY movies in the UK under the name 'The Magic Reindeer'. It follows a young reindeer who is searching for his brother who has been kidnapped. It's a fairly standard tale but is illuminated by some good characters and some gorgeous animation. Unlike many animated tales we are thankfully spared any really annoying characters. There are some genuinely funny moments to go with the usual animated adventure. Rather surprisingly for an animation it does cover the issue of parent separation which I found a bit strange in a children's film, however I don't necessarily think this is a bad idea. I really enjoyed this film and more importantly so did my children who are after all the target audience. An animated film that deserves a wider audience.

I put this on for my little girl never seeing the first one, and I never paid attention before but wow a lot of movies now a days are really pushing the single parent spotlight or broken home spotlight-is it that hard to believe that two people can stay together that we even make reindeer have broken homes in kids movies?! Never saw the first Niko movie and have no interest in seeing it or ever having my kid see this again. I was expecting a Christmas movie but got a pep talk for kids of broken homes whose parent is dating someone new. Spent so much time on that that I dunno when the Christmas part took place aside from the beginning when the reindeer were doing practice runs for Christmas eve-only thing Christmas like I saw-course eventually I cheered inside for bath time so I could turn this movie off (before it was over) so I don't know if they ever got to Christmas stuff after they were done pushing their broken home agenda.

I quite liked the first Niko movie. It had decent animation, great characters, original idea and a storyline that managed to keep me invested and then some. I've seen it once or twice since and solidified my opinion: it's more than decent Christmas movie, not a classic, but still enjoyable and kid-friendly. I'd happily recommend it to all families.And then there's the sequel, which follows the traditional way of offering more of the same, sans the novelty. In this case Niko is once again being forced to play the rule of a headstrong child with short temper and no patience whatsoever. It's a common cliché that the main character in a sequel seems to have learned nothing from his previous adventure, and this is true here as well, which is immensely aggravating. And when the storyline pretty much mirrors the previous film, this film can pretty much kiss goodbye to being as good as the original.Luckily the film makers got a few things right. I complain about Niko having learnt nothing, but there's the mitigating factor that he's still a kid, so he still has lots of learning to do. He should have learnt at least something, though. The rest of the cast though remains pretty much the same. They're not amazing, but they're solid. The same with animation. Nothing groundbreaking, but it looks good, though a bit uneven, as numerous studios were involved in the process, so the quality wavers a bit from time to time.The biggest problem is the story. It's just not as good as the first one, mostly because they tried to recycle the same plot, but with different enemies, which rarely works. There's a subplot concerning Niko's new stepbrother, but it's also very tired and clichéd. Not horrible, per se, but not very good either. You can pretty much guess how it'll go from the first minute of it.So that's this film. It's nothing spectacular, if anything it's a bit below average, but it's harmless fun and it's not going to hurt or upset your kids. It's over an hour's worth of semi-decent family entertainment. If you can, watch the first one, as it is much better, but this will do in a pinch.