Disney Marathon: ‘Brother Bear’

10/25/2021 by gfunk101

For those just joining us, this is a movie marathon with a twist. Myself (cranky 40 year old blogger), my son Josh (11 year old Nintendo obsessive) and my daughter Amelia (drama llama 9 year old) are watching Disney movies in a random order and ranking them. We hope to see interesting differences in how we organise our lists.

Film: Brother Bear

Released: 2003

Director: Aaron Blaise, Robert Walker

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Jeremy Suarez, Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas, Jason Raize, Michael Clarke Duncan

Plot: Alaskan tribesman Kenai, living post-oce age, attacks and kills a bear out of revenge for his brother’s death. As punishment, the spirits transform Kenai into a bear.

Review: Um. That’s kinda the whole story. Kenai (Phoenix) is hardly the most sympathetic or even likeable Disney hero. He’s actually an asshole. Every stage of his journey and obstacle he faces is entirely his own fault because he is an asshole. From the get-go Kenai is a whiney sort, giving off prequel Anakin energy. He attacks a bear, and this pointless action results in Kenai’s brother being killed by the bear. Kenai then goes out for revenge and murders the bear. For this action Kenai is turned…into a bear. It’s so weird that Disney has two movies about someone being turned into a bear to be taught a lesson about family.

Although this is a pretty unique culture and landscape to set the movie in, it’s a generic depiction of ‘natives’. There’s very little in the way of anything distinct about this movie, right down to the mystic old lady and being in touch with nature. When we become an adventure about a couple of bears travelling across Alaska, Brother Bear doesn’t even feel much like a Disney movie. This was a time when Disney were clearly feeling threatened by Dreamworks and this is definitely reflected by the marketing.

One of the more notable aspects of Brother Bear is that Phil Collins manages to deliver an even more boring soundtrack than he did for Tarzan. I can’t remember a single song from either of these movies. Every song break brings the pace of the movie to a grinding halt while Collins warbles over some landscape shots.

There’s very little story to discuss here. Some dickhead gets turned into a bear and they travel around having adventures for a bit. That’s all.

Best Song: No.

Coolest Easter Egg: Phil Collins’ performs his songs in multiple languages including French, Italian, German and Japanese meaning that no one was safe from his insomnia inducing numbers.

Weirdest Trivia: If you look this movie up on Google you may learn that many people have asked if it’s a true story.

Rating: TWO out of TEN

THE RANKING