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Brother Bear (2003)
Kenai (voiced by Joaquin Phoenix) is the impulsive younger brother in a tribe of Native Americans living in Northern America. Where exactly? Well, I don’t know but someplace where Kenai and his brothers can surf wicked glaciers dude. Kenai wants to be accepted into his people more than anything. Too bad hes a screw-up. Some fish he leaves out attracts a bear that inadvertently kills Kenai’s older, wiser brother. Kenai swears revenge against the bear and kills it. But lo, this upsets the spirits of nature and they turn Kenai into a bear himself. Oh the irony. Kenai must learn all about coping in the animal kingdom while looking after a young cub Koda, whose looking for his lost mother. Take a guess what happened to his mother. No, seriously, go on and guess. I’ll sit here and wait. Done? Okay then.
The story of Brother Bear has as much life as a bearskin rug. Once again we have a hotheaded jerk that walks a mile in someone else’s paws and learns valuable life lessons through their bizarre transformation. The only thing this movie is missing is Rob Schneider in the main role.
I don’t know what the makers of Brother Bear were intending. Is this for young kids? Well there is endless slapstick and cutesy woodland creatures. However, the first part of the story is quite dark and all about family loss. Great way to start a family film huh? With some family killings? If this is also intended for kids I’m pretty sure they’ll be bored at the preachier moments talking about animal cruelty and tolerance.
Disney once again plays it too safe and by trying to please everybody they end up likely pleasing nobody. This is 20,000 leagues below the artful Finding Nemo. Why does it seem like when the Diz does things in-house theyre so adverse to risk? What the audience is left with is a formulaic piece of fluff thats only memorable attribute is being extraordinarily ordinary.
The ending is so bad that its beyond belief, so allow me to spoil it. Kenai transforms back into a human after hes learned his valuable lesson. He then chooses to remain a bear to watch after Koda. What? Why dont they turn Koda into a boy? Or turn everyone into bears? Or why not turn everyone in the audience into people watching a different, better movie?
The animation of Brother Bear is clunky and awkward amidst a crayola-colored backdrop. The visuals often seem drab or like the templates for a better movie. The human characters appear so stocky. The best element of Brother Bear is the voice work of Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis doing a moose variation on their McKenzie brothers.
Phil Collins provides the painfully monotonous pop claptrap thats cued whenever a montage is needed. How the hell did this man win an Oscar for Best Song over the likes of Aimee Mann, Sarah McLachlan, and the creators of South Park? The best way to describe Collins collection of unmotivated ditties is that theyre like soup for the ears: runny, bland, forgettable, and dreadfully unsatisfying. If you cant tell, I dont really care for soup (Soup is too a food!).
Brother Bear is yet another half-hearted effort from the Mouse House. The story, animation, and voice acting are all sub par. Its the same sing and dance al over again, except this time its in the woods, and this time the sing and dance is your senile grandfather with his pants around his ankles doing the jitterbug. Yeah. You get the idea.
Nate’s Grade: C
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Freaky Friday (2003)
The body-swapping movie was so en vogue a while back. It began with the original 70s film Freaky Friday (which co-starred Jodie Foster), and then the 80s hit and we had Fred Savage trading places with the likes of Judge Reinhold and Tom Hanks becoming Big. Heck, Disney even remade Freaky Friday in the early 90s starring Shelly Long (where have you gone, Shelly Long?). So will audiences welcome a second Freaky Friday remake when it appears that body-swapping films went the way of synth scores?
Tess Coleman (Jamie Lee Curtis) is a therapist with a long list of needy clients and access to about every portable electronic on the planet. Shes planning her wedding to Ryan (Mark Harmon), and as the details get crunched so does more and more stress. Her 15 year-old daughter Annabell (Lindsey Lohan) is the spunky and defiant teen that just cant see eye-to-eye with mom. Shes tormented by a bratty younger brother and is trying to get her pop-punk band (which has three, count em, three guitarists; a bit much I think) into competitions. Annabell is perturbed with her mom for remarrying so quickly after her father’s death. Is there anyway these two can get along? They’ll find out when they swap places due to a mystical Chinese fortune cookie.
Curtis is simply magnificent. She gets to have the most fun as the teen cutting loose in the adult body. She has her teen mannerisms and vocal tics down cold. Most of all, Curtis is having loads of fun and it becomes infectious, but not in the strained and superficial way Charlie’s Angels 2 tried to convince you with. She turns in a splendid comedic performance utilizing her tomboy magnetism. Shes a pure joy to watch because she goes for broke with her performance. I cant even think of what Annette Benning would have been like in the role. Ditto Kelly Osbourne as her daughter (they were originally cast).
Lohan is equally up to the plate. She has a natural flair for comedy and also gets Curtis stilted mannerisms down to a T. Her line delivery is great. Lohan was in the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap, but with Freaky Friday she’s grown up into Avril Lavigne apparently. I also feel that Lohan has much more charisma and acting ability than in all of Hilary Duff.
The body-swapping gimmick is generally a straight forward path for the characters to literally walk in each others shoes and learn valuable lessons. But even so, I found myself getting choked up toward the end. It was surprising the amount you care for these two characters. Sure you know exactly how this whole enterprise will end, but exceptional acting and clever writing elevate the material.
Even more surprising is some risqué elements in the story. When Annabell is in her mothers body, her hunky crush starts falling for mom. Of course the Disney folks dont let this ever reach Mrs. Robinson territory before a tidy resolution. Even more risqué is the impending marriage of Tess. If the two ladies cant reverse their body-swap, Tess daughter will be stuck in the grown-up body, the same one that will be married and, yikes, be engaged in all kinds of honeymoon activities. A 15 year-old marrying and having sex with a 50 year-old man? Creepy.
Some things of Freaky Friday feel tacky and out of place, like a near racist portrayal of nosy Chinese women. And it’s never explained what Annabell’s hunky crush does at her high school. He works there, but your guess is as good as mine for what exactly he does besides wandering the halls and making doe-eyes at young girls.
Freaky Friday is exuberant, poppy, charming and refreshingly fun. The acting from our two female leads is strong and the steadied direction from Mark Waters (The House of Yes) balances a quick pace with airy humor and pathos (and a strong soundtrack of pop-punk covers). I think Im more surprised than anyone that the three Disney films released summer 2003 (Finding Nemo and Pirates of the Caribbean as well) were, by far, the three most sheer enjoyable films during the summer of 2003. Freaky indeed.
Nate’s Grade: B+
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Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Johnny Depp is THE MAN. But then, we already knew this. Can’t wait to see more.
Nate’s Grade: A
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Lilo and Stitch (2002)
Disney’s track record the last few summers is not exactly sparkling. Did anyone out there see Dinosaur or Atlantis? Anybody? You know you’re in for a different take when the film’s heroine, Lilo, in her opening scene punches another little girl and tries to beat her to the ground. Lilo is a troubled child living with her older twenty-something sis, Nani, in Hawaii after a car accident claimed their parents’ lives. Nani is stretched thin trying to find a job, look after her troublesome little sister, and also stay a step ahead of the social services representative. Lilo is saddened at her situation and deeply longs for a friend.
In a galaxy far far away, a mad alien scientist is on trial for creating the ultimate in destructive evil-ness – a manic six armed blue dog lookin’ thing named Stitch. Through a series of circumstances Stitch manages to daringly escape and runs off to Earth, a protected planet because of a rare endangered species I won’t spoil. Stitch meets up with Lilo at an animal shelter and she immediately takes a liking to this offbeat pet. Stitch isn’t the friendliest or most well-behaved creature but he eventually warms up to his new family. You can pretty much take it from there.
What makes Lilo and Stitch so much better than the last few Diz offerings, besides a total lack of songs, is that it’s a fresh and Disney animated film. The focus is on an unconventional family with no pristine smooth edges around them (hello opening) and the material is shown a remarkable level of maturity. That isn’t to say that Lilo and Stitch isn’t funny, because it has many charming and hilarious moments, many due to the sputtering and wild Stitch.
Not all the elements entirely gel well, especially the sci-fi with the family struggle. The animation has an old-fashioned look to it complete with backgrounds that look dusty, like the ones that were used in the 1970s. The characters have a slight anime tinge to them, like half-moon mouths and noses like dinner rolls. Lilo and Stitch is the hippest Disney outing in a long while and the best non-Pixar animated film since the underrated Hercules.
Nate’s Grade: B
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Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
A joke me and my friend Adam Kipp had going in a script we never started was about an elite tactical force known as the Superhuman Samurai Stereotype Squad. They were a group contained of all different minority killers but each was a bad stereotype of that minority – like the black man was a gangster rapper with one incredible fro, the Asian was a martial arts expert, the gay person was flaming etc. (this is not an example of how I feel toward minorities, just lampooning the lame stereotypes). So imagine my surprise when watching Disney’s Atlantis I see our joke played out in front of me, except it’s supposed to be taken seriously.
Nerdy historian and dreamer Milo (Michael J. Fox) gets teamed up with a ragtag group on an exploration to hunt for the missing land of Atlantis with the aid of a book his grandfather gave to him. Anyone else getting Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade déjà vu? This group features a tough blonde German girl Helga, a Latina mechanic who also happens to be a boxer, a crazy and dirty Frenchman, a kindly heroic black doctor that resembles Disney’s own John Henry, a lovably kooky Southerner cook, an old no-nonsense woman, and even a quirky Italian explosives expert. Assemble Superhuman Samurai Stereotype Squad!
Through some underwater mishaps the crew finally does get to the fabled city of Atlantis and is met by the King and Princess Kida, who takes a shine to clumsy Milo. They discover secrets of the lost civilization and, as always, members of the crew turn on each other in an attempt to plunder the city of its riches. The double-dealing is led by the ship’s captain Lyle Tiberius Rourke (James Garner) who has a chin that would make Kirk Douglas drop dead with envy.
There are plot holes in Atlantis big enough to build a Disney theme ride through. It turns out as revealed in the opening minutes of Atlantis that the Atlantians had mastered the technology of flight, mechanics, energy fusion, and other such scientific marvels. A race of people before even the Minoans around 800 BC had mastered the art of mechanical flight? And WE don’t even have flying cars yet but these people 2800 years ago had flying fish made with metals that they had no way of getting their hands upon? Or take for example the fact that Princess Kida greets the group in English, saying that they somehow know all languages. But if their civilization was plunged to the bottom of the sea a freaking 2800 years ago how can they remotely know languages that never existed until hundreds and hundreds of years afterwards?
Want more plot holes? Please, you know you do. How about when a character hurtles to their supposed death when they fall something like 250 feet down onto hard rock. Except later we return to this fallen character who still manages not only to live but also to turn around and fire one last perfect shot. There are so many others that they can’t all fully be mentioned.
Atlantis is supposed to be like one of the old 50s adventure films like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea except it never manages to be adventurous at all. The film does allow for people to actually die, though all off camera, which I can’t remember happening in a Disney picture unless it was the villain. There are some moments of excitement but they end too quickly and give the audience back to the characters and story it doesn’t want to return to. The animation is surprisingly sub-par with a few awkward moments that seem very rigid and static.
Atlantis is a general waste of talent and strung together with a bad script. The fact that not one kid in the audience, nor myself, laughed once in indicative of how this movie is flopping. The movie is not engaging for kids and the opening sequence with subtitles will surely go over their heads. This film is not a fun ride. It seems like the profitable-yet-creatively-stagnant Disney formula for the last decade is finally imploding. If you do have a choice go see Shrek instead.
Nate’s Grade: C
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The Emperor’s New Groove (2000)
Originally The Emperor’s New Groove was a grand Disney formula flick known as The People of the Sun concerning the Aztecs and included six Sting songs. We would have had this “same old same old” if it weren’t for someone who courageously raised their hand and said “Isn’t this stupid?” God bless that person. The original theme was scrapped as well as all the songs excluding one. The patented Disney formula was ditched for a fast pace and zany antics that haven’t been seen from Disney hands since Aladdin.
The central message of Emp’s Groove is still a moral lesson – this one over vanity and self-centeredness. David Spade voices a young prince named Kuzco with no regard for any of his followers. He plans on building a special waterslide by destroying the village of Pancha (John Goodman). Spade’s scheming high priestess Yzma (Eartha Kitt) concocts a potion to kill the Emperor with the aid of her dim-witted but loyal assistant Kronk (Patrick Warbutton). Through a mix-up the potion doesn’t end up killing Kuzco but turning him into a llama. So now alive and trying to regain his throne Kuzco can only find help with Pancha, the one he had wronged earlier.
The vocal talents of the four leads are particularly inspired with Warbutton on a different plane of comedy. Warbutton provides the film’s biggest laughs and is a genuine master of timing and vocal inflections. When Disney sequelizes this straight to video (as they do everything now) I hope it centers on Warbutton’s Kronk character. Kitt is fun in an over-the-top parody and Spade provides delicious sarcasm so simply.
What’s being advertised as hilarity is more or less spotty. Some jokes work but others are full of tedium. There are stretches of tedium that shouldn’t be there for something with “zany antics.” Yet, the 15 minute ending is the best piece of the film with multiple comic payoffs.
The anti-Disney Disney movie is anti enough. the jokes need to come more often and it takes a while to truly get into. It has its moments but The Emperor’s New Groove is not new enough. Although, I’m thankful that we got what we did instead of what we could have.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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Fantasia 2000 (2000)
The first updating of long gone Walt Disney’s dream anthology hits the IMAX screens in a resounding fury of classical music and first rate animation. Like its predecessor though, it’s uneven in its quality. Some segments are more impressive or creative than others. In the 2000 redux the best of the best would be characterized by “Rhapsody in Blue,” a Gershwin blues number brought to stunning life by characters of simplicity yet definition. The animation on each is commendable and different from the next segment to follow it. “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” the only segment from the original to be included, shows its wrinkles and grain more than ever when blown to IMAX’s wide canvas. The standout, to me anyway, was clearly the final segment closing the just-over-an-hour animated orchestra called “The Firebird.” The imagery and animation are so sleek and beautiful that I thought I was going to break down by how stupendous the artwork was. This is a tale that leaps from the screen and lets you share some of the beauty with it – further enhancing the festival of the Mouse. Without these stand alone segments this ballet of song and ink would be rather adequate and nothing more, but with the addition of these two marvelous segments it becomes something worthwhile… at least for 20 minutes. Hey, it’s the most exposure classical music will get on the youth of today.
Nate’s Grade: B
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Tarzan (1999)
The next installment in Disney’s stranglehold on children is strikingly beautiful in its fluid animation, color, picture, and at times true excitement. But again it’s just more of the same.
Despite its rich animation, the story is again the lacking problem ringing in Disney’s big ears. Every word and action falls under the strict Disney formula code, which is restraining imaginative thought more than helping it. But that’s what you gotta’ do I guess if you wanna’ sell a billion of Tickle me Tarzan merchandise.
The plot is like a ghost of what Burroughs’ novel was originally, but with the typical Disney formula points; there’s the hero suffering from an identity crisis wanting something more, the fawn-like love interest who will eventually fall in love with the only available white man in central Africa, the treacherous one-note villain, and of course the bumbling sidekicks with comic relief and one-liners of slapstick and amusement for the kids. None of this was in The Iron Giant and it still managed to be a great film. Can we at least drop some of the items on the list?
The movie can get overly pretentious at times with the hammering of the ideals that nature… good, animals… good, man… bad. I’ve heard it all before, do I need it set to Phil Collins’ monotonous radio-friendly pop songs as well now?
Despite some flaws and the worse villain in a Disney movie of recent memory (a poor man’s Gaston) it is still enjoyable and worthwhile even with the creative constraint of the Mickey Mouse. Sure it’s already made millions but for my money Mulan was better.
Nate’s Grade: C+
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