Brother Bear (2003)
Review by HTQ4
Film:
DVD:

Written by Steve Bencich, Lorne Cameron, Ron Friedman, David Hoselton, Broose Johnson, Tab Murphy, and Jeffrey Stepakoff
Directed by Aaron Blaise and Bob Walker
Starring the voices of Joaquin Phoenix, Jeremy Suarez, Jason Raize, Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas, D.B. Sweeney, Joan Copeland, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Greg Proops

Features:

• Running audio commentary by the characters Rutt & Tuke
  
• Fully Animated Outtakes
  
• Deleted Scenes
  
• Games: "Bone Puzzle" and "Find Your Totem"
  
• Music video: "Look Through My Eyes" by Phil Collins
  
• Sing-along song: "On My Way"
  
• "Bear Legends" Native American tales
  
• Featurette: "Making Noise: The Art of Foley"
  
• "Art Review" of conceptual art for the film with commentary by art director Robh Ruppel and animator Byron Howard
  
• "Paths of Discovery: The Making of Brother Bear"
  
• Alternate song by Phil Collins: "Fishing Song"
  
• Alternate song: "Transformation Song"
  

My Advice: Rent it and let your kids help you decide whether or not to buy it

Kenai (Phoenix) is very close to his brothers Denahi (Raize) and Sitka (Sweeney). After a bear kills Sitka, Kenai vows revenge, but only to be turned into a bear himself by the spirit of his deceased brother. Meanwhile, Denahi, thinking that Kenai was killed while trying to exact his revenge, has vowed to kill the bear, too. What he doesn't know is that he has mistaken his little brother (who is now a bear) for the bear who killed them. Kenai meets up with a young bear cub named Koda (Suarez) who befriends him and guides him along to the salmon run which is at the foot of the mountain touched by the Aurora Borealis. Kenai must get to this mountain to be turned into a man again. Along the way, he just might learn a little bit about what it really means to be a brother.

Confusing enough? It's really not that complicated and it plays better than this treatment reads, but it is not without its faults. If you go into this movie with the knowledge that it is a Disney movie, you might just get away with enjoying yourself...or not. It's very formulaic. Lead character is presented with a problem and along his long journey learns that there is more to the world around him than just the other humans he runs with. This one borders on hugging a few too many trees, and there is an attempt to try to force the audience to feel something rather than just allowing them to feel it. The songs are cheesy and don't fit at all with the story, not even in tone or mood. Instead, they try to--again--force an emotion onto a scene that really doesn't warrant it. The best part of the movie is the reuniting of Moranis and Thomas in a bastardized version of their famous "Bob and Doug McKenzie" characters from SCTV fame, but even that feels forced. It's just really sad that Moranis and Thomas sold out like this (when there are so many other, better ways to sell out) and let their characters be turned into a couple of moose. Still, it's the best the movie's got to offer even though it ain't that great.

The DVD could have been better. There is a real problem with Disney DVDs. They are pretty good at marketing their DVDs to the younger kids, and even making them relatively kid-worthy, but they really don't know what to do with their DVDs when it comes to anyone a little older. The absolute best piece of bonus material is the commentary track with Rutt and Tuke. Moranis and Thomas together again as these two bastardized characters from the movie doing a commentary about absolutely nothing at all. If you've even seen Strange Brew, this commentary track is a lot like the opening of the movie. It's these two guys sitting around making stuff up. If there is a reason to own this DVD, it's this track. It is absolutely brilliant.

That's about where the good stuff ends on this disc. The rest of the features are divided up across the two discs. The first disc is where you can find the commentary I mentioned above along with some other features. Running right down the two-part menu, you first run across Koda's Outtakes. This is a very well animated--but not well thought out--gag reel that was put together for the DVD. It's narrated by Suarez as Koda, but it's just not that great. The sight gags that they tried to create are just not up to some of the standards of other animated features...namely Pixar's.

Next up is the music video for Phil Collins' "Look Through My Eyes." This is not unlike any other music video on any other DVD you might happen to pick up; clips of the movie interspersed with shots of Collins singing the song. Therefore, I consider it to be a waste of space on the DVD. There is another sing-along for one of the other numbers in the show on this disc as well. Think of it as kiddie karaoke.

Finally, rounding out the first page of features on the first disc are two interactive children's games. The first is a puzzle that has you arranging bones into a footprint of a bunch of different animals. Every time you complete a footprint, you are rewarded with information about that particular animal. This is nice for little kids and the payoff is at the very least educational. If you've got kids, this is where you want to direct their attention first. The other game helps you find your totem (one of the plot points in the story). It plays out like a personality test. You have to answer certain questions to see how you would react in certain situation. Depending on your answers, you are chosen to receive a certain totem. This is really not all that great and comes across as mere touchy-feely psychobabble.

The second page of special features on disc one starts off with Bear Legends, which is a collection of Native American Tales). These are very short and some of them, quite honestly, seem like they were put together to sound like they are actual native American folk tales. Maybe they're totally authentic, but they just felt fake. There are only three, so it only takes a few minutes to sit through them.

Next up is "Making Noise: The Art of Foley." This is a fun, yet simple, look at...well, exactly what it says it's a look at. It's narrated by Suarez who goes to the foley studio to help the foley artists create the sound effects for one of the scenes from the movie. It's a skim-the-surface look at this very important artform, but it's great for the kids. Bringing up the rear on disc one is a rather boring look at the artwork that went into creating this movie. It lasts ten minutes and most kids wouldn't sit through the first ten seconds let alone the whole thing. It's narrated by two of the lead artists and it's well animated, but it's just boring.

Disc two starts off with the original theatrical aspect ratio presentation of the movie. This is in the 2.35:1 format. As far as the bonus material goes, your first choice is the forty-five minute making-of featurette called "Paths of Discovery." Don't worry, it's divided up on a sub menu for you so you don't have to digest all forty-five minutes in one sitting. Nor do you have to wade through the parts you've already covered if you do have to stop it. This most definitely targets the parents rather than the kiddos, but it still falls short of the mark. Even though it's for the parents, it still tries to keep the kids interested and does so at the risk of making the presentation still too juvenile. There just isn't a happy medium with this feature. There is nothing really new and exciting about the making of this movie at all. It's a straight-forward 2D animation job, but this featurette tries to make it sound like they were breaking new ground by really closely examining real-life animals and trying to make their animated counterparts as real as possible. Did they ever think that this audience might very well have seen the freaking The Lion King?

Next up, there are three deleted scenes. They are not available to be played with commentary, but there is an introduction by the film's directors. Other than that, it's pretty much as you would predict. These are scenes that didn't help advance the story at all, but were thought to be good enough to add onto the DVD. The never-before-heard song was also written by Phil Collins and it was replaced in the film by the song "Welcome." It's presented through a series of shots of the storyboard for the Salmon Run sequence in the movie. The song doesn't really do anything for me, but then again neither did any of the other ones that actually made it into the movie. I guess it's kind of refreshing that it isn't another music video tacked onto the DVD to make it look like there are more special features than there really are.

The last item on the bonus material menu on this disc is also another song that Collins wrote for the movie. This is the song that is played when Kenai meets the great spirits on the mountaintop. It was translated from English into Inuit and sung by the Bulgarian Women's Choir. The video presentation acts like a music video in that there are cuts from the movie edited together with shots of the Choir singing the song in the studio. The English lyrics play by in subtitle form across the bottom of the screen. This is actually well done. I'm glad they were able to end it with a positive note.

If you've got kids, you might want to rent this one first to see if they like it before you shell out the dough for it permanently. Die-hard Disney fans already own it, right?