Admittedly, this might have been influenced by the fact that it and Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers were the only DTV Disney movies I watched as a kid, but I understand the plot better than I did back then, and I also rewatched Three Musketeers more recently and found I wasn't incredibly keen on it, so my appreciation of this movie isn't based purely on nostalgia. Bear in mind that this review contains spoilers for both the original Lady and the Tramp and the sequel.
I'll start by addressing three of the most common criticisms I've seen against the movie: human characters' faces appearing onscreen, Buster's backstory coming off as contradictory to the first movie, and Buster being creepy to Angel.
Most of the instances of a human character's face being onscreen are when it would be awkward and contrived to obscure it, such as Scamp playing with Junior since they're at about the same height. The movie is otherwise making an effort to obscure the faces, such as Jim Dear's face being covered by a panel on the top half of the window when giving Scamp a bath at the very end. And you know what else? The faces sometimes appear in the original movie too. So quite frankly, this criticism is complete bollocks.
The first movie showed that Tramp had friends he looked out for despite otherwise being a loner, so it's not inconceivable that he could have been friends with Buster too, just offscreen. I can understand not liking it when a sequel crams a bunch of backstory into the first film when it wasn't there before to serve the current story needs, but Frozen II does something similar in its prologue.
The thing about Buster is that he is not a good person. He is bad, therefore the things he does are bad, including flirting with Angel. Jafar treats Jasmine the same way when she's fifteen.
Now I'll talk about the strengths.
The animation is remarkably high quality. Occasionally it dips, because, y'know, DTV Disney movie, but for what it is, it's a really good effort. Try Hunchback II if you want animation that can in any way be considered bad.
The movie makes it a point to incorporate many characters from the original into the cast and give them something to do. Mr. Busy, the rat, and the pound dogs are exceptions to this, but all of them have various logical in-story reasons to not show up. Not only that, but despite their minimal screentime, where it would have been simple to make Scamp's three sisters interchangeable, the one with the white collar comes off as a little more head-in-the-clouds than the other two, like when the other two race to the bathtub, but she doesn't quite get the memo and chases after them, then later when they are incoherently telling Trusty about Scamp's disappearance and she chimes in, "What they said!"
Chekhov's Gun is in full effect here. An example would be at the beginning when Tramp scratches himself and then Scamp scratches himself in the exact same way during an argument about how they aren't like each other (that on its own is a good example of dramatic irony, I might add), then later, Buster later sees both of them do it which confirms his suspicions that the two are related. Also, a lady gets her wig knocked off of her head and it falls down a drain. It holds on the shot of the wig falling down the drain, but not with so much emphasis (there's something else going on in the same shot) as to destroy all subtlety. Later, Lady, Tramp, Jock, and Trusty are searching for Scamp and think they found him but it turns out to be the same wig from earlier.
The emotional scenes are well-executed, such as when Tramp jumps into the river to get Scamp back. Lady's "Oh, please" will send shivers down any parent's spine. Later, Scamp looks through the window and sees his family mourning his disappearance and it is a genuinely heartfelt and upsetting moment. Angel really hammers it home by angrily mocking Scamp.
There are a few flaws I want to bring up, though. The editing is a bit choppy in places. Say, it stays on a certain shot for too long, or not long enough, or a character is stationary in one shot but then they're walking in the next shot. And the ending came off as a forced way to wrap everything up in a neat little bow; the family adopting Angel is understandable after she helped bring Scamp home, but all of the remaining Junkyard Dogs also finding families that also apparently happen to live in close proximity to Scamp and Angel seemed overly convenient. And the romance subplot between Scamp and Angel didn't contribute to the plot to any significant degree.
All in all, I think of this movie as an enjoyable experience, and quite frankly, I'm glad it got to be made before the plug was pulled on DTV Disney sequels.
I'll start by addressing three of the most common criticisms I've seen against the movie: human characters' faces appearing onscreen, Buster's backstory coming off as contradictory to the first movie, and Buster being creepy to Angel.
Most of the instances of a human character's face being onscreen are when it would be awkward and contrived to obscure it, such as Scamp playing with Junior since they're at about the same height. The movie is otherwise making an effort to obscure the faces, such as Jim Dear's face being covered by a panel on the top half of the window when giving Scamp a bath at the very end. And you know what else? The faces sometimes appear in the original movie too. So quite frankly, this criticism is complete bollocks.
The first movie showed that Tramp had friends he looked out for despite otherwise being a loner, so it's not inconceivable that he could have been friends with Buster too, just offscreen. I can understand not liking it when a sequel crams a bunch of backstory into the first film when it wasn't there before to serve the current story needs, but Frozen II does something similar in its prologue.
The thing about Buster is that he is not a good person. He is bad, therefore the things he does are bad, including flirting with Angel. Jafar treats Jasmine the same way when she's fifteen.
Now I'll talk about the strengths.
The animation is remarkably high quality. Occasionally it dips, because, y'know, DTV Disney movie, but for what it is, it's a really good effort. Try Hunchback II if you want animation that can in any way be considered bad.
The movie makes it a point to incorporate many characters from the original into the cast and give them something to do. Mr. Busy, the rat, and the pound dogs are exceptions to this, but all of them have various logical in-story reasons to not show up. Not only that, but despite their minimal screentime, where it would have been simple to make Scamp's three sisters interchangeable, the one with the white collar comes off as a little more head-in-the-clouds than the other two, like when the other two race to the bathtub, but she doesn't quite get the memo and chases after them, then later when they are incoherently telling Trusty about Scamp's disappearance and she chimes in, "What they said!"
Chekhov's Gun is in full effect here. An example would be at the beginning when Tramp scratches himself and then Scamp scratches himself in the exact same way during an argument about how they aren't like each other (that on its own is a good example of dramatic irony, I might add), then later, Buster later sees both of them do it which confirms his suspicions that the two are related. Also, a lady gets her wig knocked off of her head and it falls down a drain. It holds on the shot of the wig falling down the drain, but not with so much emphasis (there's something else going on in the same shot) as to destroy all subtlety. Later, Lady, Tramp, Jock, and Trusty are searching for Scamp and think they found him but it turns out to be the same wig from earlier.
The emotional scenes are well-executed, such as when Tramp jumps into the river to get Scamp back. Lady's "Oh, please" will send shivers down any parent's spine. Later, Scamp looks through the window and sees his family mourning his disappearance and it is a genuinely heartfelt and upsetting moment. Angel really hammers it home by angrily mocking Scamp.
There are a few flaws I want to bring up, though. The editing is a bit choppy in places. Say, it stays on a certain shot for too long, or not long enough, or a character is stationary in one shot but then they're walking in the next shot. And the ending came off as a forced way to wrap everything up in a neat little bow; the family adopting Angel is understandable after she helped bring Scamp home, but all of the remaining Junkyard Dogs also finding families that also apparently happen to live in close proximity to Scamp and Angel seemed overly convenient. And the romance subplot between Scamp and Angel didn't contribute to the plot to any significant degree.
All in all, I think of this movie as an enjoyable experience, and quite frankly, I'm glad it got to be made before the plug was pulled on DTV Disney sequels.