Brother Bear (2003) (moose commentary)

Brother Bear: 2003: dir. Aaron Blaise, Robert Walker. Seen on DVD (July 11).
Let me explain. It would never have occurred to me in a million years to rent Brother Bear, which looked like a pretty mediocre Disney offering. But then my boyfriend put it in the rental queue after reading about the special commentary track performed by Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis, reprising their moose characters from the movie. The moose sound a whole lot like certain other characters for which Thomas and Moranis are well-known: Bob and Doug McKenzie. I am not a huge McKenzie brothers fan, although my brothers did subject me to repeated viewings of Strange Brew. I also am not a huge Disney fan these days. However, I was curious about the commentary track, which some articles described as rather surprising in contrast to the movie itself.

The commentary track was hilarious. I laughed my ass off. I mean, there is no way that it could not be funny: the McKenzie brothers, or rather moose, taking apart a slow, ponderous, cliche-ridden movie.
Among other things, I learned that chipmunks herald danger in many movies, examples of which can be found in Marathon Man and Top Gun. Obviously I hadn’t paid proper attention to such films. (Was there a chipmunk in Titanic? Perhaps I mistook it for Leonardo diCaprio.)
I also learned how Disney creates animated films: they putting out those old art-school application ads where you draw a bear and send it in, and then they take everyone’s bear drawings and put them together and that’s how you get a film about bears.
Stunt doubles for the man-turned-bear, an equal-rights group for the salmon, a day spa for moose, Canadian airport souvenirs, moose yoga … all these things and more are discussed at length in the commentary track. It is one of the funniest things I have seen from Disney in years and years, since the days of the dearly department Howard Ashman.
However, there is no way you would ever get me to watch Brother Bear without the commentary track. It looked awful. Let me rephrase that. It looked gorgeous. The backgrounds were stunning, many of the minor animals were beautifully animated, and the visuals all screamed that This Is A Prestige Film.
Well, you know already how I feel about Prestige Films. (See Seabiscuit).
Perhaps I shouldn’t judge Brother Bear without having heard its proper soundtrack, uninterrupted, at full volume. Perhaps the dialogue was full of wit and wisdom and originality. Perhaps the songs expressed hidden emotions in a subtle way. And perhaps I am Jennifer Lopez.
I understood nearly every nuance of plot, characterization, and storyline without having to hear a word of the soundtrack. Now this is not necessarily a bad thing. After all, there are great silent movies, and movies in which the visuals are much more important than the sounds. Look at the films of Jacques Tati. Look at the recent, brilliant Triplets of Belleville, although actually I feel that the soundtrack, though without dialogue, is crucial to that particular film.
But Brother Bear is so full of cliches and tired storylines that nothing is a surprise. You don’t have to hear what the characters are saying, you know, and you know they’re not saying it in some unique and meaningful way, either.
My boyfriend made the astute observation that Brother Bear appeared not to be written so much as it was assembled by a crack team of marketing people. This wasn’t someone’s special vision, this was Disney trying to figure out how to make a bushel basket of money without offending anyone.
Disney announced recently that they have discontinued plans to make any more hand-drawn animation films because they are unprofitable. Their last such films, Brother Bear and Home on the Range, flopped miserably at the box office. I would argue that it is not the method of animation that led to failure, but the lack of a decent script. Again, look at Triplets of Belleville, a very successful hand-drawn animated film.
The up side of this is that in order to make Brother Bear more attractive for grownups to rent or buy, Disney added the entertaining moose commentary track. If the movie had been more profitable, we wouldn’t get to enjoy such a funny little gimmick. But the commentary track is made to be funny to adults, not children.
Children deserve better movies than this. Look at the movies released for children in the last year. Brother Bear is inoffensive compared to Cat in the Hat or Garfield. But as long as it’s rated G and doesn’t offend anyone, studios figure they can package any kind of crap as a children’s movie and parents will rent it in droves and park their kids in front of it.
Disney? Can we have more films like Holes, please? Thank you.