Review of Brother Bear (2003) by Spencer S — 28 Oct 2014

There's definitely a charm to this film, but compared to the trailblazers that came before it, this feels very underwhelming. My main complaint would be that it relies a lot on contrived ideas and has a morality that feels uninspiring, though it's dealing with big, provocative issues.

The other thing that was really annoying was the reliance on Phil Collins for the music, which was an interesting gimmick in "Tarzan" but here it's unwelcome and tedious. The message relies on facing up to past misdeeds, letting go of grief's anger, and not blaming the wrong people for mistakes.

I liked that it dealt with a culture that doesn't get much screen time, but most of the plot focuses more on a man-bear's journey to a mountaintop, and that's just not that exciting. It was rather funny at times too, though that's mostly because of the Canadian moose, played by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas.

The ending was amazing, and goes against a lot of traditional Disney narratives, which I thought was a very thoughtful choice. It just didn't feel very fresh, as it dealt with a lot of already trodden ground.