Review: The Great Bear

The Great Bear (Den kæmpestore bjørn) is a Danish animated movie that came out in 2011. It has English dubbing, if you would like to see it without subtitles. The movie is about Jonathan and Sofie, two kids who spend the summer with their grandfather, who lives at the edge of a giant forest. The grandfather tells them that they are not allowed to enter the forest. Jonathan is not thrilled to have his little sister hanging after him so he tries to loose her, but it goes a little too well. Sofie suddenly disappears and now Jonathan has to enter the forest to find her.

The first thing to notice about this movie is that the animation and 3D isn't really top notch, at least when comparing to the big animation studios in the US. It's made on a relatively small budget, therefore it could never compete with the big North American movies. If you're one who get bothered with animation that isn't great, this might be a hard sit through for you. Now the story isn't terrible, the problem is that we've seen it so many times before, it's the man vs. nature plot. This will not take any big risks with the story, there will probably not be any surprises for you. It's not a very big deal for me, but it does make the movie more boring and I lose attention because of it.

Another problem this movie has, is that it's a bit unpleasant. If you want to make a children's/family film that is a bit darker, you need to know how to do it right. This movie doesn't succeed in that. One thing you need in a dark movie aimed at kids is to have very happy and joyful moments, in the beginning, middle and end. The Great Bear tries that, but the moments are too short, doesn't give enough good feeling and are far between. It's too bad, because they do put in the effort.

But now to the positive, I think the best part of this movie is the bear. First of all, the design of him is great, it's kind of a weird idea that they really pulled off. The bear also look very nice, you can see that this is what they put the effort and money into, to make the bear look good. The animation on him is also tremendously good, which is nice after very uneven acting on the human characters. You can always see what kind of mood the bear is in, without him turning too human.

Something else I really think they succeeded in doing was to create a child character. Sofie feels like a kid. She has a good sense of what's right and wrong to her, and she doesn't realise that she annoys her brother, she just wants his company. It's nice to see a movie kid that isn't annoying.

All in all, this movie isn't the best. There are a few too many things that they don't quite succeed with and it takes me out of the movie. The story is pretty standard and doesn't really do anything new. But despite that I think it's worth a watch. You can tell that the filmmakers tried and were passionate about making a good film. It didn't quite work out for the best, but there is effort there. I might be a little biest since it's from a Nordic country, and it's exciting to see a movie produced in your own part of the world. But if you can find it on sale or for rental, I suggest you give it a try.

Images: Copenhagen Bombay