Review 262: "Bears"

Celebrate Earth Day.

Well, a little late, but still...

I'll Get You, Bears!

      Bears is a 2014 documentary and is the fifth theatrical Disneynature film. Released for this past Earth Day, the film is directed by Alastair Fothergill (Earth) and Keith Scholey (African Cats). The film, which is narrated by John C. Reilly. follows a family of grizzly bears as they travel through Alaska in search of food. The mother bear Sky and her two cubs, Scout and Amber, finds themselves faced with many obstacles as the fight to survive, including wolves, fellow bears, lack of salmon, dangerous mountain journeys and an evil clam. Filmed in Katmai National Park in Alaska, Bears shows off the world of, well, bears like we've never seen it before.

No joke. Just cute.

Shadows of Katmai

      I'll admit I was definitely looking forward to Bears more than the average person most likely. I mean, everyone knows that bears are the greatest animal ever. So really, a movie solely about them was entirely in my interests, ever since I saw the trailer during The Croods last year. And thankfully, Disneynature did not disappoint. The film is simply stunning, with the directors expertly showing of the beauty of the Alaskan wilderness. Even better are the bears themselves. While, yes, they could probably rip my head off for soccer practice, or whatever bears do, they do seem just adorable here. Well, Scout and Amber do. When the grown bears go head to head, the film gets some better action scenes than I've seen all year. You find yourself quickly involved in the bears lives, honestly caring about what happens to them. You laugh when the cubs get dragged along by Sky. You get upset when it looks like Scout is gone. In fact, it's only slightly undercut by Reilly's overly silly narration, but even that gets to be pretty harmless after a while. This is a film about these bears, obviously, and the film does a great jobs capturing their lives.

They're so cute. And deadly!

The Verdict

      There might not be that much to say, but what there is to say is mostly positive. Bears is a short, perfectly sweet trip to the movies. It's hard not to begin caring about these bears and the looks at bear life the director gives are just fascinating. The narration might be a bit much at times, but overall, Bears is a documentary the everyone, and I mean everyone, will enjoy. Mostly. Bears gets 5 stars out of 6.