I’d call the bizarre whiplash of badness to the other end of
the spectrum something of a monkey’s paw with regards to the desire to escape
the lacking passion in the previous batch of 3 but frankly, I take comfort in
these two movie at least having something worth discussing.
“Brother Bear” was a substantially mixed bag unleashed to
the public at a time when Disney’s animation division was at the height of
identity crisis.
The story of Kenai having a drive for vengeance humbled by
becoming a member of the titular species to foster a recently orphaned cub had
all the passion of traditional 2D animated feature at a time when the art was
dying in favor of CGI, diluted by the stock storytelling tropes of children’s
animation, erasing the subtlety of the film’s first act framing in favor of a
typical talking animals feature.
“Brother Bear 2” had to not only struggle with the nature of
its source being a fable with a closed off ending that left very little in the
way of sequel potential but additionally that said film also wasn’t
particularly good.
As a result, the continuation centered around Kenai’s
childhood friend turned inevitable love interest comes across about as
shallowly as one can expect from a studio so bursting with creativity that
decided that a passable “Tarzan” sequel would be a stake free childhood midquel
rather than pull from decades old literary mythology.
More humor, more colors, more contrivances, more comedic
talking animal sidekicks, and since the film is direct to video and produced on
a significantly tighter, though not quite unsubstantial, budget, less of the
more cinematic atmosphere that fed into the best elements of the original film.
About the nicest thing that I can really say about the movie
lie solely in basic concept in that being one of the relatively recent
additions to the Disney Animated Cannon at the time, and a less sacred one at
that, the movie wasn’t necessarily a poor choice for being bumped to cash cow
status, even if quality and demand would speak otherwise.
“The Fox and the Hound” is perhaps one of the single most
sobering entries of the entire cannon.
Todd and Copper’s childhood friendship falling apart because
of the antagonistic roles that society has dictated them to fall into regarding
one another pulls no punches and the results were quite possibly one of my personal
favorites of the studio from childhood even to this very day.
Like “Brother Bear 2,” it also left very little in the way
of sequel potential and probably would only stand to lose its powerful impact
with further elaboration. I guess it’s a good thing that they didn’t elaborate
on any of that in favor of making a play on “Almost Famous” in which Copper
gets caught up in the luxuries of being in a country music band composed of all
dogs.
This is insanity that I only wish I could make up.
Ignoring that the premise has so little to do with the movie
it claims to be a midquel to it could be twisted into a follow up to any Disney
movie featuring talking animals, if you were going to go this far to fabricate a
concept for a film, couldn’t you have just gone all the way and made it an
original property.
“Tarzan II” was at least following up a film that kids of
the age would have at least very vividly remembered. As much as I adore “The
Fox and the Hound,” it wasn’t exactly the kind of classic that kids of the era
were banging down the door for more of.
The only pleasure plowing through either of these films has
brought me is that knowing that the only ones that I have left to talk about
are going to be surprisingly positive in nature.
No comments:
Post a Comment