Brother Bear is one of those films that mayyyybe you’ve heard of but there is also a good chance that you’re just thinking of something else. This one didn’t exactly go down as one of the all time animated greats. It’s not bad and in the end I will be making the cast that it is a “good” movie but certainly not very good or great. It’s a very safe film where you aren’t going to likely have any major issues with it but I would also say that to an extent the film feels a bit aimless. There isn’t a super large plot going on so half the time you’re just buying time with random gags.

The movie starts with Kenai getting really excited because he will now be able to finally become a man. There is a coming of age ceremony that his village does and you also get your own animal amulet. Unfortunately he is discouraged when his amulet is the bear which symbolizes love. Kenai doesn’t feel like this is very manly and his day gets even worse when a bear eats all the fish that the family had gathered up. This was directly his fault for not tying it up and when Kenai fights the bear, he loses and causes his eldest brother to die.

Kenai comes close to death as well although he manages to murder the bear. The spirits don’t like this and transform him into a bear. Kenai must now find a way to reverse the curse and in the meantime his elder brother will be hunting him across the jungle. After all, from Denahi’s perspective (The last surviving brother) the bear has now murdered both of his brothers. So he swears revenge in order to make things right.

This was definitely a really tough situation for Denahi in particular. He had a lot of reason to be upset as Kenai for constantly causing trouble. He also brings up a good point initially in not wanting to blame the bear for what happened. It was just an act of nature after all. Unfortunately were he goes too far is when he blames Kenai and when the lead seemingly dies, it adds a whole lot of guilt to Denahi. He absolutely has the saddest story among the various characters here because he is really having to deal with all of this on his own.

This guy was really resourceful too with how far he chases the bear. Denahi manages to make it over through the entire salmon run and also holds his own in the fights. Naturally Kenai is holding back since he doesn’t want to hurt his brother but it still takes a lot of stamina to have this much energy after being on the run for so long. It’s easy to root for Denahi as a character. Naturally you aren’t rooting for him to accomplish his goal since that would only end up harming him.

As for the main character, well naturally a large part of the story is about Kenai getting his character development. So he is meant to be annoying at first and you just have to see if he improves quickly enough. Personally it is hard to get past his opening scenes because these were really big mistakes that he made. It’s not like they were small ones by any means. His actions directly resulted in several deaths and that’s not something that you can take very lightly.

Then as a bear, he’s rather rude to the cub that journeys with him for a long time. Kenai goes out of his way to be a jerk like making fun of the stories and making it clear that they aren’t friends. The film doesn’t give us enough of a reason for why he had to be this openly antagonistic. So the only outcome you can really have here is that he’s a total jerk. Kenai tries to make it up to him by the end but it was too little too late.

Koda is the cub who travels with Kenai and I thought he was a lot better than the average kid character would be. Koda tries to keep their spirits up at all times and is a very reasonable character. He’s not overly oblivious nor is he getting them into a lot of trouble. You couldn’t ask for a much better companion and it’s why you wish Kenai would have been a whole lot nicer to him.

As for the animation, I thought it was pretty solid. There’s a lot of movement going on and some fun energy effects like with the spirit transformations. We do get some action scenes like with the bear battles so the animators get a little chance to show off. It’s nothing out of this world but it was pretty good. The soundtrack is more on the forgettable side. None of the songs would really be hitting the big time and the general ost doesn’t really pop out at you. This story will have to succeed more on the story.

The story itself isn’t bad. The animal stuff tends to be more basic but the human plot had some rather high stakes. I also give the film credit for not being too rough with the animal violence here. Even when a bear dies, there isn’t any real blood and due to the spirit influences, it doesn’t feel too final. It does feel at times like the writers weren’t too confident in the story itself though so you have a lot of random characters like moose and others who show up as comic relief. They get their scenes to buy time for the next main moment.

The humor could be hit or miss. I enjoyed some of the jokes at least but at times they could feel a bit forced. Like this is just here as a quick intermission as opposed to the joke needing to be there. I’d say it’s because the salmon run journey isn’t all that long. Maybe they should have had an obstacle or two pop up where Kenai and Koda have to help some village of animals. Then that helps Kenai start to become more mature. That could have worked over well.

Overall, Like I said this film is good but it’s not great. I think you’ve got a lot of interesting seeds here like Kenai being hunted by his brother and the debate on love and revenge. It did make sense not wanting to hunt the bear down after the first attack but I also understand why after two brothers are murdered you do feel like some human intervention is needed. Less screen time for the animals and more for the humans would have been a really good idea I’d say.

Overall 6/10