{"id":13915,"date":"2014-04-15T11:56:42","date_gmt":"2014-04-15T18:56:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qgp.ykq.mybluehost.me\/cinephiled\/?p=13915"},"modified":"2014-04-15T11:56:42","modified_gmt":"2014-04-15T18:56:42","slug":"review-engaging-bears-needs-learn-shut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinephiled.com\/review-engaging-bears-needs-learn-shut\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Engaging &#8216;Bears&#8217; Needs to Learn When to Shut Up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Silence is never more golden anywhere than it is documentary features. Most, if not all of them, have to employ some sort of voice-over narration to impart certain information.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, that narration can be as much a hindrance as a help with the genre. When it is done badly, or it is overdone, there are times it can take attention away from the subject at hand \u2013 times when you may be tempted to yell \u201cJust shut up already!\u201d at the screen. And there are times in <em>Disneynature Bears<\/em> where you may feel the need to do just that.<\/p>\n<p>The film\u2019s narrator is John C. Reilly, a well-respected actor whose somewhat goofy but affable tones would seem perfectly suited to this type of material. But he\u2019s not just reading an outline of the story the filmmakers are trying to tell. No, at times he also has to read \u201clines of dialogue\u201d from the perspective of the film\u2019s ursine characters, whom the writers have tried to \u201canthropomorphize\u201d to an almost overbearing degree.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s an unnecessary, cutesy affectation that makes the film seems dumber, more superficial than it actually is. And luckily, the movie does gets out of its own way (eventually) and tells a somewhat engaging, \u201ctrue-life\u201d nature tale. (It\u2019s still not up to the standards of the infinitely better <em>Chimpanzees<\/em>, from 2012.)<\/p>\n<p>Crews from Disneynature, the studio\u2019s independent documentary production house (headquartered in France) followed brown bears over the course of a year in the Alaskan wilderness. Documentarians Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey (<em>African Cats<\/em>) and their camera crews focus on a mother, Sky, and two young cubs, Scout (a male) and Amber (a female).<\/p>\n<p>Sky and her cubs have recently emerged from their winter hibernation, and are trying to make their way to \u00a0However, threats to their safety are constant, including those from a pair of frisky males, Magnus (the battle-tested \u201cleader\u201d of the local pack) and Chinook (an outcast), who might be hungry enough to feast on other bears. There\u2019s also a clever wolf, Tacani, who keeps dogging the trio\u2019s tracks.<\/p>\n<p>As it turns out, Sky is\u00a0 smart enough to run from these potential confrontations, and is clever enough to get enough food to keep them all alive. That includes consuming some less-than-tasty, but-at-least-filling forest grass and digging up rocks at a nearby, low-tide shoreline, where the three bears enjoy some mussels and clams.<\/p>\n<p>However, their ultimate destination is in the mountains: a so-called \u201cgolden pond\u201d that\u2019s filled with enough salmon to sate their bearish appetites and allow them to store up enough fat reserves to survive the next winter. (Complicating things: Sky is eating for three. She has to make sure she has enough food storage to produce mother\u2019s milk for the quick-growing cubs.)<\/p>\n<p>Fothergill and Scholey do take some liberties with the story and possibly make sequences seem more dangerous than they probably were (the wolf never seems like much of a threat, to be honest). And they try to set certain moods for scenes with noxious musical interludes, including the overplayed-to-death \u201cHome,\u201d by American Idol winner Phillip Phillips.<\/p>\n<p>Luckily, they focused on the right subjects. This trio already has enough \u201ccharacter\u201d to keep our interest throughout, though 86-minute running time may make really young audiences a little antsy.<em><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Jeff Michael Vice can also be heard reviewing films, television programs, comics, books, music and other things as part of The Geek Show Podcast (<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegeekshowpodcast.com\/\"><em>www.thegeekshowpodcast.com<\/em><\/a><em>), and can be seen reviewing films as part of Xfinity\u2019s Big Movie Mouth-Off (<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/BigMovieMouthOff\"><em>www.facebook.com\/BigMovieMouthOff<\/em><\/a><em>).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Silence is never more golden anywhere than it is documentary features. Most, if not all of them, have to employ some sort of voice-over narration to impart certain information. Unfortunately, that narration can be as much a hindrance as a help with the genre. When it is done badly, or it is overdone, there are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":13917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13,16,99],"tags":[222,1705,185,1706,270],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Review: Engaging &#039;Bears&#039; Needs to Learn When to Shut Up - Cinephiled<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cinephiled.com\/review-engaging-bears-needs-learn-shut\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Review: Engaging &#039;Bears&#039; Needs to Learn When to Shut Up - Cinephiled\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Silence is never more golden anywhere than it is documentary features. Most, if not all of them, have to employ some sort of voice-over narration to impart certain information. Unfortunately, that narration can be as much a hindrance as a help with the genre. 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