Les Bisounours: le film

Ahhhhhh! This is really cute, especially the cousins. Its message is subtle and not laid too thick. The evil spirit is really scary. Her voice drips with pure poison and you have to admit that the world would be terrible if nobody cared. The good characters have plenty of charm and personality. They're not cloying. You really care about what happens to them and that's what makes a good movie. 8/10

At an orphanage, Mr. Cherrywood (Mickey Rooney) tells the orphans a bedtime story about three children who were helped by the Care Bears, colorful teddy bears who live in the clouds and help people share their feelings. While Secret Bear and Friend Bear (Eva Almos) try to convince orphaned and emotionally cold brother and sister Kim (Cree Summer Francks) and Jason (Sunny Besen Thrasher) of the value of friends, Tenderheart Bear (Billie Mae Richards) tries to help an accident prone lonely magician's apprentice named Nicholas (Hadley Kay) who only wishes to be as beloved as his mentor Mr. Fetuccini (Brian George). While organizing a box of odds and ends, Nicholas finds an old book that beckons him to open it and reveals a spirit (Jackie Burroughs) who takes the form of a face in a book of spells promising Nicholas the friends he's always desired. Unbeknownst to Nicholas, the Spirit intends to use Nicholas to do away with all caring and love in the world, leaving Kim, Jason, and the Care Bears to stop him.

Created by American Greetings in 1981, Care Bears was one of a number of Greeting Card properties to find itself marketed and merchandized in the decade with relaxed communication restrictions. With the property established in the minds of consumers with appearances in greeting card and toy form, American Greetings were keen to produce a feature film to expand the brand. Canadian animation house Nelvana Ltd. Still reeling from distribution problems and failure of their independently produced film Rock & Rule had opted to take contracting work to stay afloat (Inspector Gadget among other things) and were approved to produce the film. Made over a very quick eight month period and produced under its $2 million budget. The movie despite being released by independent distributor Samuel Goldwyn Company after major studios didn't see the potential of a film aimed strictly at children, the movie became a sleeper hit making an estimated $34 million in revenue and vastly outgrossing the much bigger budgeted Disney animated film of the year The Black Cauldron. The movie exploded the Care Bears popularity and helped to keep Nelvana afloat as a company despite no entitlement to profit participation. The movie also became the first in a wave of cheaply produced animated features based on toys or other established properties in a brief period of the mid-80s. The Care Bears Movie is undeniably a major event in feature animation from a historical perspective, but the movie itself? It is what it is.

Despite being produced on a lower budget, The Care Bears Movie more often than not looks adequate considering the resources they had on hand. Of course this movie won't match the level of detail and quality seen in Rock & Rule, but considering this whole movie's existence is predicated upon increasing brand awareness of the Care Bears and introducing the Care Bear Cousins as a subline it's a lot more effort than they probably needed to give to this film. The movie has very loose storytelling logic that plays more to emotions than it does to logic (not surprising for a film with caring and feelings as its bread and butter) and there is a structured plot with reasonable stakes that young kids in single digits will get invested in. Much like other such characters popular in the 80s the Care Bears don't have much depth as they're mainly defined by a singular gimmick that's usually in their name, Braveheart Lion being brave, Secret Bear always whispering, Grumpy Bear being grump, etc. The children characters of Kim, Jason, and Nicholas have more depth and actually go through some semblance of growth so you have to give credit there. I will say that from a nostalgic point of view, I do remember the villain, The Spirit voiced by Jackie Burroughs, to be quite threatening and unnerving growing up so the movie did have that element giving its antagonist a sense of legitimate threat.

The Care Bears Movie really defies any sort of review or analysis because it is meant for small children and that's fine. Sure I can think of better movies of this type that are specifically aimed at children in single digit ages such as Follow That Bird or Curious George, but The Care Bears Movie is okay for what it is.

The 80's were really the decade to live in! I have to admit, for someone my age, I honestly believe that the Care Bears movie is a very well-made movie. It came out the year I was born, and I'm reasonably sure that it is also the very first movie I ever saw in my entire life.

Now, where should I begin? Ah, yes. It makes me enjoy the movie a lot more now that I know that some famous people were involved in it. The story is narrated by Mickey Rooney, someone with a very kid-friendly voice. There was also Cree Summer, who did voices in various different cartoon series', and of course, Billie Mae Richards (Rudolph).

This is a great children's movie, and some adults can enjoy it too. I don't recommend this movie to the 7 to 18 range. It's pretty enjoyable, but it also has a lot of frightening parts. I was always scared to death of the dark spirit. To help lighten the mood, there are also some catchy songs in this movie as well, which are all done by famous pop artists such as Carol King and John Sebastian. Today, the only thing I really love about this movie is the finale song, "It's Great to Be in the Care Bear Family". For some odd reason, I'm such a sucker for all those "Kids of the Kingdom"-types of songs.

This movie was followed by two sequels. The first of the three was really good and really dark and dramatic, the second one was just as good but seemed more like a comedy than a drama, and the third one was just plain weird. Right now, I just wish I could watch this movie again and see how much stuff I can remember from it. I'm sure it will bring back to me some very fond memories.

Yeah, my cool defense is that I was 5 when this went down.

So, Lucky Bear, he has an Irish Accent which, when you think about it and the fact that they all live and grew up and spent their entire lives in the same place, Care-a-Lot, just means that he has a speech impediment doesn't it?

Moving on, this will give you near instant tooth decay. It is way too sweet and even writing that makes me feel guilty because I know I just made the caring meter go down.

But it is brilliant, the concept is such that if you don't like you are instantly sort of a heartless git. A sociopath even.

It holds your humanity hostage

Let's face it - the world has grown into a rather unpleasant place, and the recent generations of children are more jaded than any I or my mother have ever seen. Toys are over-priced, uninventive and children get bored with them in a matter of days. Children's movies today are much the same, getting shorter and shorter every movie and teaching children nothing.

If anyone with children or younger siblings has ever had to suffer through current children's programming, you'll see what I mean. They're reverse-educational; a young child pointed at the Teletubbies sun and said "Baby," and then pointed at the real sun and said "Baby." Blues Clues teaches children to shout(trust me on this one,) and shows such as 'the Wiggles' remind me far too much of PeeWee Herman (the worst "children's" show of all time.)

So rewind TV - go back to 80's cartoons. Even though Care Bears were originally piloted to advertise the toys, the show evolved into something NICE. The animation was far from spectacular, especially when compared to today's computer animation, and the story lines WERE simple. But it had something to offer children that 99% of new cartoons don't offer - examples of non-violent resolutions to conflicts, sharing thoughts and items with others, being open about your feelings, caring about yourself and others. These 80's cartoons encouraged children to not be jaded, selfish and rotten brats. (And if you don't believe me that today's violence-fed kids are brats, just go to my sister's elementary school - I've NEVER seen so many 5th graders dressed like whores in my life.)

Storyline and morality aside, you should also pay attention to the music. Following the habits of 80's cartoons and movies, there are numerous song and dance numbers randomly inserted into conversation. But they are certainly striking in the boldness of them. And by this I mean the harmonies. Cue up the song "Home Is In Your Heart" on your movie or cd and just listen. The harmonies running through the song feel as though they should clash against each other and explode, but they just miss that clashing point and somehow manage to work very well. You can distinctly hear the SATB lines, and how soprano and tenor carry a lot of the melody and the base and alto are used to interesting harmonies. Just listen. The music was really well written.

Long story short, let your children watch movies like this, and if you feel that they didn't learn anything from it, discuss the movie with them. 6.5/10