unbearable

Per usual for a nature film from the Mouse House, it is around 75 percent magical and 25 percent bullshit. The photography, including a frightening avalanche sequence early on, is awe-inspiring and a genuine pleasure to experience on the big screen. And it is hard not to marvel at the animals, captured interacting and moving in such intimate moments. A shame then the viewer has to endure nonstop one-liners by John C. Reilly, whose voice-over contributions also force the footage to adhere to a storyline in the spiritual vein of The Lion King. They film the real world, so majestic, so dangerous, so alive, then try their hardest in post-production to render it a type of live-action cartoon! Alas, it is hard to complain too much: Disney is Disney, and they have their established M.O. with this nature franchise, and they no doubt believe it is an essential part of drawing families to the multiplex. Still, I cannot help but believe they are at least modestly underestimating viewers, children included. The hours upon hours of phenomenal on-location photography could be shaped into a a piece of crowd-pleasing popular cinema without the absolute lowest of lowbrow tactics, including, in the specific case of Bears, nothing short of a montage set to the sentimental pop hit "Home" by Phillip Phillips.

There is a wolf who features throughout the film (positioned in Reilly's narration as a solitary "thief"), and I seriously wonder if it is a trained animal flown in for the production. I could be wrong, but it is my understanding wolves always live and hunt in packs.

Anyway, if forced to assign a grade to encapsulate the best and worst of the final product: B-

What's the wolf doing throughout the film? If the film follows the same wolf over weeks or months, then it's highly likely to be trained.

A lone wolf becomes so by either being chased off by the alpha (or the alpha is chased off by a younger, more dominant male), or leaves for mating purposes. They'll almost immediately seek out another pack or other wolves to form a new pack after that for survival. One wouldn't be out and about following any bears...

I'm interested in seeing this, but they seem to be getting more and more away from being actual documentaries.

The wolf indeed follows the bears over the course of the summer, always solo. Very curious.

If you have seen them, how does this compare to Earth, Oceans, Chimpanzee and African Cats?