List Item: Watch The Disney Animated Canon
Progress: 44/58
Title: Brother Bear
Year: 2003
Looks like the Disney downward spiral is continuing with today’s film. I mean, just when I thought I couldn’t be less engaged with a Disney film of this millennium, here comes a rewatch of the 2003 film Brother Bear. A film that may end up ranked near the bottom of the entire canon.
Let’s just get down to it – Brother Bear midst just fail to engage me, but it might have just taken things that I disliked about other Disney films and just smashed them together. For example, what was one thing I really disliked about Tarzan? The music as written and sung by Phil Collins that came in more often than required. Who write and sang the music to Brother Bear that played too frequently, that’s right Phil Collins and the songs were not as good as the ones in Tarzan.
There were also some very distinct choices with the animation, specifically how it changed a third of the way in so that it became more cartoony. Also, this change coincided with a change in aspect ratio, which would have been a neat idea if you didn’t have to spend half an hour with a crappy aspect ratio. By the time the film went to proper widescreen I was already so disengaged that the impact was lost.
Then came the biggest issue for me – I never liked the main character and all his actions are extremely predictable to the point where I paused the film and my husband pretty much guessed the remaining 50 minutes of his journey. Similarly, Koda the baby bear deuteragonist just had one speed: annoying. The only genuine laugh that this film served me was an elderly female bear claiming her husband was dead when, as he yelled from afar, he was very much alive. So yes, this film just was not for me.
Now, if online review are to be believed, Brother Bear is not the worst Disney film of the last 20 years. No, that title belongs to the next film on the list and, honestly, I really hope to blow past these as quickly as possible so I can watch the quality go back up again. One month’s worth of Disney to go, I guess.
Before I Kick 