Brother Bear is an extremely bipolar film that at times, creates emotionally impactful scenes centered around relatable and likable characters only to squander much of its own potential with a weak second act, inconsistent writing and some questionable direction decisions.
Set in prehistoric Alaska, Brother Bear establishes a fairly unique atmosphere by drawing inspiration from Native Alaskan folklore and centering around an Inuit village populated by colorful and compelling characters. The movie dedicated several scenes, especially in the beginning, to establishing the culture and societal structure of the tribe. This is the greatest strength of the film as it does a fantastic job of immersing the viewer in a culture that is rarely explored by movies of this genre. It also does a great job of introducing the film's protagonist Kenai, voiced by Joquin Phoenix, and his two brothers Denahi and Sitka. Their personalities and relationships with one another are distinctly established in the opening scene of the movie and effectively sets the stage for the resulting story.
Without spoiling the plot, I'll discuss only plot elements that were clearly laid out it in trailers and promotional material, the story focuses on the main character being transformed into a bear as a punishment for a particular transgression. While this plot is certainly not original, Brother Bear surprisingly makes the most out of what could have been a tired and cliched story structure by introducing enough unique elements to set it apart from other movies with similar story beats.
Where the movie begins to diverge from its initial tone and strong characterization is in the second act. After the central characters and conflict are established, the movie abruptly becomes a sort of road trip movie until a solid finish to the film refocusses the meandering plot. While this idea is not conceptually terrible, in execution, it comes across as unnecessarily forced, predictable, and at odds with the more realistic and grounded tone set up in the beginning of the movie. This is exemplified mainly by the subpar writing of dialogue for the animal characters. While an attempt is made to explore the juxtaposition between the societies of the animals and the humans, this is severely undermined by dialogue laced with modern lingo, references, and over the top stereotypes.
The voice acting is passable, never reaching greatness but not truly horrible either. There are some instances of pretty apparent under acting but this is caused more by weak writing in key scenes and poor direction than it is by laziness or incompetence by the voice actors. Perhaps the most questionable aspect of the movie is it's musical score by Phil Collins. The issue isn't really the songs themselves but more of the ham-fisted way they are crammed into scenes that would have been better served with instrumentals. There is one scene in particular where a dramatic and pivotal conversation between the main characters is completely hijacked by one such Phil Collins track. What should have been a heart rending and emotional exchange is essentially ruined as the conversation fades out only to be replaced by Phil Collin's vocals. One huge positive for the movie however is in its animation. It's classic 2-D animation style lends itself nicely to the setting as both the scenery and character models are very well done.
While I admittedly went way more negative than I initially set out to when I started writing, I still feel that despite its issues, Brother Bear is a solid Disney flic that succeeds more than it misses. The biggest issue that I had with it is that it is a good movie that could have and should have been a great movie. It had all the makings of an all-time classic Disney movie but squandered its potential and, in turn, falls into a category of a solid B- kid's movie. Some minor character alterations and script revisions could have gone a long way to improving what is an enjoyable but ultimately frustrating movie.
Score: 7/10
Review of Brother Bear
