LYNX THOUGHTS

Oh Brother

So, I've seen two movies over the past two days... Matrix: Revolutions and Disney's Brother Bear. And it is the latter that I will talk about, because I feel more of a need to do so.

Disney is a film making company that can invoke a surprising amount of emotion from people, for a myriad of reasons, be it evoked during their movies, or from childhood memories, for seeing a particular film in a particular circumstance or with a person, or calling Disney the epitome of crapshlock and soul-sucking evil american empire -- and sometimes we may have conflicting feelings with some or all of those in our emotions. For myself, there is a bit of nostalgia, but my bigger interest in Disney began in their 'rebirth' years, and for those who know me TLK was a rather profound film for me. So while I certainly think that Disney isn't the pinnacle of animated films, I do have some feelings for the big D.

The best way to sum up Brother Bear is probably this: it has 5 writers.

There is some nice stuff in Brother Bear. The scenery is beautiful. There's an aspect ratio change that is inspired. There is some lovely animated special effects. There is some not-great stuff in BB. Some of the character animation is plain wrong (perspective, bad motion). Some illogic. But for the most part, the big thing about BB is that there is a LOT of stuff that falls in the range of neither good, nor bad. It's just there.

The story has plenty of potential, I think. It is certainly not unsimilar to many other Disney films (a valid criticism of so many D films) but it has the potential to go through the motions in a new and powerful way. But while one of the central themes in the movie is all about Storytelling, this is the one thing the film fails to do in a spectacular fashion: to tell a good story, and tell it well. And that is a huge shame.

What ends up happening is the story plods along on its own, with this and that happening, with the necessary check boxes of plot development coming up, but it is very disjointed, it doesn't engage, and thus feels like a string of vignettes. Everything is a bit too raw, to much show for showy-ness sake.

It's great to see the McKenzie brothers, but there is really no point for them to be in the film (their brotherly discussion near the end does not excuse their inclusion in the film). The echoing goats are amusing, but that's about it. The strangeness of some of the bears at the salmon run seemed odd. What gets lost with these inclusions is a greater sense of journey, of discovery, of learning. Even for a D film, at less than 90 mins, this film felt super short and devoid.

Nicely, there are no musical numbers by the characters; I'm still undecided how I feel about the songs overall. They were not particularly strong, but I would want to hear them on their own before passing judgement.

In the end, I am very disappointed with the film. This will not surprise to many of my friends or acquaintances who will argue I am always disappointed by films (which is not true), but there are some beautiful themes and animation in here, and it is the flaccid-ity of the movie as a whole that brought a tear to my eye as much as the strength of those moments of themes/animation.

Posted by kannik at November 15, 2003 07:46 PM in Arts&Media, Daily | TrackBack