Brother Bear

Disney’s 2003 film, “Brother Bear,” is more spiritual and New Age than your typical animated film about animals, but it does have a couple of talking moose and a bear cub. It’s determined in its creativity, including images from prehistoric cave paintings and playing with the screen width. Roger Ebert commented, “But it doesn't have the zowie factor of "The Lion King" or "Finding Nemo," and is sweet rather than exciting.” Children and their parents can possibly relate to this on completely different levels, the adults on the transfer of souls from man to animal, while the kids will get into the adventure parts.

The story begins in a Native American colony in the Pacific Northwest, thousands of years ago. We see three brothers: the eldest is the brave Sitka (D.B. Sweeney), the middle child is the strong-willed Denahi (Jason Raize) and the youngest is the troublesome Kenai (Joaquin Phoenix). Each of them wears a totem around their necks, with an animal spirit they are identified with. Sitka has the eagle, Denahi a wolf, and Kenai is a bear, and considers himself short-changed, especially when he’s told that the bear represents love, which he thinks is way far down, so to speak, on the totem pole.

Kenai doesn’t like bears, and picks a fight with one that tries to steal the fish he caught. He carelessly chases the bear, and when Sitka tries to protect him, he gets killed and transfigures into an eagle. Kenai is advised by the tribe’s wise woman Tanana, voiced by Joan Copeland, to accept what has occurred as what the universe wanted, but Kenai has his mind set on killing the bear. He succeeds, but the universe proves it has a sense of justice, or perhaps humor, by transfiguring Kenai into a bear – so that Denahi thinks it was Bear Kenai who killed his Brother Kenai. Ebert commented, “Denahi continues the family tradition of vengeance by tracking down Bear Kenai, in an irony that is positively Shakespearean, and no wonder, since I learn that this story was originally inspired by "King Lear," although the notion of three siblings seems to be all that survived.”

The opening segments are in a straight screen ratio of 1:85 to 1, but after Kenai becomes a bear, the colors deepen and the screen widens to 2:35 to 1, so you’d better hope your projectionist is with you. Given Kenai’s hatred towards bears, he is extremely furious to be a bear, but soon he gets bear lessons from Koda, voiced by Jeremy Suarez, a cub who teaches him everything. Kenai finds out from the spirit of Tanana that he must find Eagle Sitka on a mountain where light touches the Earth, and Koda leads him to the location – maybe because he really knows where the mountain is, possibly for reasons of his own.

Ebert said in his review, “Their trek there involves many adventures, including a scary encounter with flowing lava from a volcano. Two Canadian moose named Rutt and Tuke turn up and have conversations that sound amazingly like the McKenzie Brothers from SCTV, maybe because they are voiced by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas. The outcome of the story, which I would not dream of revealing, has Kenai making a career choice that is far from practical but certainly shows he has learned to see things from a bear's point of view.”

The movie, which is by the same Orlando animation studio that gave Disney’s “Mulan” and “Lilo & Stitch,” is very good looking, and sometimes wants burst through the boundaries of predictable animation to give a more visionary picture of its time and place. A scene involving cave drawings comes spectacularly to life. There’s also a curious early part when the animators duplicate the effects of sunlight refracting through a lens, even though animation doesn’t use lens and doesn’t refract light. Variety said this would be the last 2D animated movie from Disney in the near future. Now, they would switch to 3D style which originally started with Pixar. Both versions have their strengths. One is not better than the other, simply different.

I would definitely recommend this film and say give it a watch. If you have small kids, they will definitely fall in love with this movie. There’s a lot of family themes in this movie that I think will be really good for the whole family to sit down and watch together. Watch out for more “Disney Month” tomorrow.