Brother Bear

In 2003, the final animated film by Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando was released. Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Jeremy Suarez, Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas, Jason Raize, and D. B. Sweeney, Brother Bear grossed $250.3 million worldwide. It was also nominated for Best Animated Feature, but lost to Finding Nemo.

Kenai (Phoenix), a young Inuit is busy preparing for his coming of age ceremony along with his brothers Sitka (Sweeney) and Denahi (Raize). But he is less than thrilled when his spirit animal turns out to be the bear of love. He attempts to prove his toughness by hunting and killing a bear that stole some food, but Sitka dies helping him. When Kenai catches up to the bear and kills it, the spirits turn him into a bear to teach him a lesson. Now he must find his way to where the light touches the earth with a cub named Koda (Suarez) to change back.

This one’s not one of Disney’s better movies. The animation is good and it has an interesting shift in its aspect ratio to tell the story. And the beginning and end are really good. But the middle is just blah.  

The meat of the story feels really lackluster and could have done a lot better. This just feels like your average buddy road trip movie where one of the two really doesn’t want to be with the other. And the other characters are also either annoying or unnecessary. Where Disney really succeeded in creating a child character in Lilo, they took two massive steps back with Coda, who is painfully oblivious.

I also have some issue with the music. While it’s mostly ok, the song that Phil Collins sings during the most emotional aspect of the movie really makes the movie suffer. Take when Kenai finds out what happened to Coda’s mother. If this scene had just a low orchestral piece while Kenai was explaining everything, that would have been great. But Collins has to tell what’s going on and how we should feel. Let the characters show us how we should feel. Let them emote. We just get the song and then Coda running off. We don’t get the middle of that and we really should.

On the other hand. The beginning and ending, where we get the culture and myths and everything about Kenai and his people are really good. And the lesson it gives in not being driven by revenge is also great. It’s just that the middle part is just so lackluster.

#48