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By
WAYNE KLEIN
Entropy will eventually
overtake the universe and things will eventually
fall apart. Unfortunately for Disney, that's
already begun to happen in their animated feature
films. "Brother Bear" is the latest in a long
string of formulaic manufactured junk that points
out the disparity between Disney's "product" and
the terrific films from their former partner
Pixar. While Pixar's films continue to remake
fresh and challenge the boundaries of storytelling
and traditional animation with their intricate CGI
animated features, Disney has somehow elevated
their direct-to-video "product" to feature film
status. In reality, "Brother Bear" can't touch the
routine but clever quality of the latest
direct-to-video Pooh video or even the delightful
"The Lion King 1 1/2." Both those films show the
creative spark missing from this dud.
Casting saves much of "Brother Bear" from becoming
a disaster. Casting SCTV vets Rick Moranis and
Dave Thomas as a variation of their most popular
characters, the MacKenzie Brothers from that
series, is half inspiration and half desperation.
It's clear that the writers couldn't come up with
a memorable character or story on their own so
they cast their nets to other media and performers
that could bring their talents to, pardon the pun,
bear on this project. The stiff unimaginative
animation and backgrounds have begun to betray the
assembly line production that Disney has been
using in grafting computer techniques to
traditional hand drawn animation. The results
appear uninspired and honestly look like the bad
Disney knock off that emerged in the wake of the
success of the studio's quartet of classics "The
Little Mermaid," "Aladdin," "Beauty and the Beast"
and "The Lion King."
Kenai (Joaquin Phoenix) faces a trial by fire
after killing a bear in revenge for the death of
his oldest brother, he himself is turned into a
bear. His task seems unclear at first until he
meets an orphaned bear named Koda (Jeremy Suarez).
Koda's mother has disappeared and he can't get to
the Great Gathering of bears by himself. The two
become fast friends and help each other in the
process. Unfortunately, Kenai's other brother
Denahi (Jason Raize) aggressively hunts for Kenai
believing that the bear he has become killed both
Kenai and their older brother.
The songs by Phil Collins are as memorable as a
bad television jingle. Collins' homogenized songs
lack absolutely any character and remind me of the
really bad songs used in many of the marginal
Disney knock off that went direct to video. It's a
pity, really as I would have hoped that Disney
could rise to the challenge of the sophisticated,
fun and intelligent films Pixar has been producing
for the company over the last 10 years. Assembly
line production of Disney live animated films
appeared to be a thing of the past when the
studio's most popular films came out over a decade
ago. It seems that these were part of a brief
renaissance before the final decline of this once
important studio.
Not surprisingly Disney has a number of tie-ins
and DVD extras that are actually superior to the
film itself. The usual featurettes and games that
have become a mainstay of Disney DVD releases are
here and show much more imagination and
intelligence than the film itself.
If traditional animation died, it's not due to the
CGI revolution but the lack of imagination and
assembly production of features like "Brother
Bear" that killed it. It's almost as if Disney
deliberately hunted down and destroyed every last
bit of creativity remaining in their animation
studio at the expense of generating income. The
two didn't have to be mutually exclusive (take a
look at the success of the studio's best modern
animated classics as an example). If this is truly
the end, all animation fans can hope for is the
chance of a quick resurrection. |
