The Country Bears

I personally do not think The Country Bears is that great, but I also don't think it is that bad either. I can think of worse movies that have a higher rating, but I can also think of better movies too. The Country Bears may have a lot of faults, that I agree, it does have its good points.

Let's start with the good points shall we? First and foremost, Christopher Walken seems to be really enjoying himself as the villain of the piece, he is deliciously theatrical and really breathes life into any shortcomings the film has. The soundtrack is also great, country-and-western music I can take or leave but it was used and performed very well here. Most of the cameos are pretty entertaining, it was nice to see Elton John, Willie Nelson and Queen Latifah, while the production values are good, Haley Joel Osment is appealing and the country bears of the title are convincingly played.

However, the film does have its shortcomings, starting with the length. The film is too short, and could have been longer with a little more detail to plot. I didn't mind the plot was simple, some of my favourite films have simple stories, but it is a predictable and rushed one with an ending you can smell a mile off. The script is also rather weak likewise with the jokes some of which were embarrassing(1812 Overture played with the arm-pits, what next?), the film is rushed I think and the direction is sloppy.

So overall, The Country Bears had its moments, and it is much better than the trailer which was embarrassing, but it wasn't enough to sustain into a good enough film. 5/10 Bethany Cox

We saw this sort of by accident: there weren't any good seats left for SIGNS and we were determined we were going to see a movie. This was on at 5:15. this is what we saw.

It's funny, it doesn't take itself too seriously, and it's fun for the whole family. It's nice to see a movie where the writer and director make entertainment their top priority. It doesn't happen a lot these days.

it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be (c'mon, the trailer is just painful to watch), but man o man, there's some trippy things in this movie, and they actually make it worth watching.

the musical sequence at the diner in the middle of the movie is painful to watch, but I was laughing so hard that it didn't matter; that is PERFECT satire of the entire genre of movie musicals with the talented character breaking out in song randomly and having everyone else in the scene break out in choreographed dance. The song the waitress sung was awful, but the parody was genius.

the cameos by so many of today's artists are priceless, especially the out-of-the-blue appearances of Xibit and Elton John. I'm not sure why any of the reviews I read of the film never mentioned so many famous people wandering in and out of this movie, but I'm glad they didn't because they all cool surprises. (on a side note, why Mr. Walken never showed up in the trailer is beyond me, but his performance here is priceless!)

the prospect of the actor playing Beary's "brother" going from being Stifler's little brother in Pie and Pie 2 to this nicely obnoxious kid who has a bear for a sibling is just so absurd it's funny.

the country music numbers were kick-@$$ enough to make me consider buying the soundtrack...

and the groundskeeper bear was funniest thing in the whole movie to me, he cracked me up all the way through. heck, they can spin him off into his own show if they want, I liked him.

I'm not going to go around recommending this weirdness of a movie to people, but I say give it a try; do NOT form an opinion based on the trailer, because it's not fair to the movie itself. It might not be the world's most intelligent movie, but it was worth watching for sure. (And seriously, the talking bears thing might work for a theme park attraction, but the idea of human-like bears living amongst humans just makes me wonder how much LSD the writers of the screenplay had dipped...)

I give "The Country Bears" a 7 out of 10, it really wasn't bad, just really trippy and weird!

This is one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. Its got comedy, drama, a love story, and GREAT music. Not only have the Henson puppeteers made the most realistic bears(watch the mouths forming the words), but the suit performers bring them to life so fantastically that I forgot they were suits. The film features good family values, as Beary finds out "Its the people who love you no matter what, .. thats your family" This Disney film is for any one who has a family with kids, or anyone who is just a kid at heart. The DVD has some great extra features including an on stage concert. Forget the negative comments and give the bears a chance!

As I watched this movie, I couldn't help but think it must have been taken from the Disney Channel. Look at all the Disney standards: taken straight from, and in order to promote, their theme park division; hero feels out of place and quests for self-fulfillment; and random musical numbers totally out-of-place with the film (unlike animated musicals, the music in this movie is, in many cases, supposed to be spontaneously created from whatever's around, but is really overdone; it's hard to willfully suspend that much disbelief.).

One GOOD thing about the movie is that most of the cast is well-known (household names like Walken and Osment join veteran voice talents Huss and Root, alongside the familiar faces of Mitchell and Bader); yet even such a strong cast (which also features Brad Garrett from Everybody Loves Raymond) can't rescue a script (and premise) that was doomed from the start. The cops and mom are stereotypes, the dad is an exaggeration, and Dex, who SHOULD be the sanest family member, can't help but fall into Disney's "everyone loves everyone" mode despite his efforts not to. While most of this is allowable to some extent in a movie aimed to kids... this is excessive. I watched it with a group of kids, and most were bored. Seems to me that to really enjoy this movie, one must combine a child's tolerance for saccharine moments with an adult's attention span. Otherwise, it's a below-average movie propped up by strong acting talent and slick animatronics.