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There
wasn't one part of me that wanted to see The Country Bears,
and the only reasons I went were as follows: 1) The theatre was
near Bed Bath & Beyond, and I was in the market for a shower
curtain; 2) The running time was only 85 minutes; and 3)
Christopher Walken was listed in the credits.
Damn my need for new bathroom accoutrements!
Bears is even worse than I imagined a movie ever could
be, which is really, really bad (it's based on a frigging
amusement park ride, for chrissake).
The
first in what we can only imagine will be a full slate of
DisneyWorld-rides-turned-feature-films (adaptations of Pirates
of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion are already in the
works...seriously), Bears is about a young bear named
Beary Barrington (voiced by Haley Joel Osment) who lives with a
family of regular human folk.
For some reason, Beary has never felt like he fits in, so
when brother Dex (Eli Marienthal, Stifler's brother from American
Pie) tells him he's adopted, Beary runs away from home.
Instead of heading to a friend's house, or the local
rub-and-tug parlor, Beary sets his sights on Country Bear Hall,
which is where his all-time favorite band – the long-defunct
Country Bears – got their start before becoming one of the
world's biggest musical acts.
When
he gets there, Beary discovers the place is rundown and about to
be demolished by an evil banker (Walken) unless $20,000 can be
raised in just four days. Guess
what? Beary tries
to get the four members of the Country Bears to reunite for a
benefit show that will save the Hall.
Cue the road trip to find the Bears, as well as a subplot
involving Beary's parents' belief that he was kidnapped
(particularly hysterical, given the recent rash of real-life
child abductions) and the two Fife-ish policemen (Daryl
"Chill" Mitchell and Diedrich Bader, the latter of
whom has finally found something less funny than The Drew
Carey Show) dispatched to return the cub to his suburban
home.
Does
Bears suck? Do
bears crap in the woods? Never
mind the lack of content (it's only about 20 minutes, if you
don't count the numerous non-rockin' tunes) and the ridiculous
plot holes (we never learn why the Bears broke up, or if there
are any other Bear creatures living amongst us who don't notice
any difference between the two very different species). This is a movie about Bears playing guitars (with big, clunky
claws!) and harmonica (without lips!), but, for some reason, not
drums. I mean, that
would be totally ridiculous, right?
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