Review of Bears (2014) by Tom S — 02 Jun 2014

Swanner: Continuing with their Earth Day series, Disneynature brings to the screen Bears. The documentary follows an Alaskan bear and her two cubs as they come out of hibernation on their search for food. Mama bear and cubs cross mountains to find the feeding grounds but those grounds also hold dangers for the family when the cubs become targets of the older hungry bears. Calm down...it's Disney. Only the parents die.

Judd: The last Disneynature film we saw was Chimpanzee, narrated by Tim Allen. Chimps are natural actors for children's nature documentaries. They've got enough personality that they're watchable without the violence. Bears, on the other hand, if they aren't riding a unicycle they need to be mauling something. This, in addition to John C Reilly's uninspired narration, makes Bears a documentary without bite.

Swanner: Disney was always known for their great documentaries but as much as I wanted to like Bears it just never grabbed me. I'm not sure if it was John C Reilly's narration or the lack much happening on screen. One of the action sequences was when one of the cubs spending too much time on the beach and when the tide came in he had to dredge through 4 inches of water...that was a close one. Once the bears finally get to a place with fish it is fun to watch the salmon literally fly into their mouths but the rest of the movie was pretty darn boring and I would think that would be worse for a kid.

Judd: You would think that for a movie featuring to cubs that there would have been more frolicking, and that would have made the movie more fun to watch. You can't go wrong watching baby animals play. Maybe they should have had a beer bust; that always gets our local cubs here in Sacramento in a frisky mood and they're usually entertaining to watch, more entertaining than the movie, at least.

Swanner: **.

Judd: *.