Brother Bear
Hello, and welcome to my animated discussion. Yes, I went and saw a Disney animated film in theatre. It wasn't the first time I've done it since I became an adult, but I haven't done it very often. I was pretty interested in seeing this, and I'm not embarrassed to say it was because of the moose played by Bob & Doug MacKenzie. Or, Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas. I'm a huge fan of SCTV, and of the MacKenzie boys in particular.
The majority of the movie was fairly good. It basically deals with a fictional Native tribe, way back in the days of the woolly mammoth. A young man, about to be made a man who witnesses the death of his older brother at the hands of a bear. He swears vengence, and kills the bear. The oldest brother, the one who died, comes back as a spirit and turns the youngest into a bear.
He then befriends a young bear, whose mother the boy had killed. They head to a salmon run, and the other brother is in hot pursuit. He wants to kill the bear for killing both of the other brothers. The bears, along with the aformentioned moose, Ruk and Tuke, make their way to the run.
In a heart-wrenching scene, the transformed bear admits what he did to the other's mother. The transformed bear runs to the top of a mountain, meets his brother, and the oldest brother comes back and shows everyone what was going on. In the end, the youngest boy chooses to stay as a bear and protect the young cub.
All in all, it was an enjoyable romp. The characters are fun to watch, and are as drawn out as any the Disney has created. And I was not dissapointed by the moose. They were just as funny as I thought they would be when I first saw a preview for this at Pirates of the Caribbean. It was one of those entertaining fluff films that didn't try to change the world. It entertained and I'm glad it didn't try anything else.
And in the world today, when traditional animation is beginning to fall by the wayside, its nice to see Disney try one more time to make a decent one. They could have given up after that piece of crap Treasure Planet, but they didn't. Its possible that the animation medium that I grew up with may have another shot. I hope so.
Oh, yeah, I'm givin it an 8. Go see it.
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