Den kæmpestore bjørn (2011) Reviews

• Our family loved this movie!

  hintonmama2015-09-23

  We found this wonderful movie on TV and were quite delighted by it. We found the characters appealing and the story enchanting. It wasn't overburdened with special effects and was more like a familiar children's book brought to film. We were left wanting to see more and were sad to see it end. We would recommend this film to any family that enjoys storytelling in the fantasy realm. I can't wait to go buy it so we can watch it again. Thanks to cable TV we got to experience it for the first time. We want to own it so we can watch it multiple times and share it with others. Our ages range from 4 years to 71 years. We watched it as a family and all found it appealing.

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• Ugly and frightening

  franbelle102013-06-20

  This is a Greenpeace tale told by the Brothers Grimm ! Frightening, nearly gore sometimes, and yet targeting children. There is nearly no rest along, nearly no cheerful moments and a constant oppressive atmosphere. Computer graphics are disputable ; the bear is acceptable but humans are sub-standards. Environment is OK but dark as the rest and lacking details. Story is nothing to remember of ; it has been told again and again, following the Disney rules, linear and predictable. Music - but is there any music at all ? Any tune to remember ? Ugly, frightening, dark, sub-quality. Definitively not for children under 10, and, IMHO, probably of low interest to the rest of us.

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• the Great Bear was /great,

  erlebird2015-09-24

  My 27 month old granddaughter does not sit quietly for many movies but this is one she sits and watches the whole movie without moving. She loves it. Every time she asks to play a movie, she wants the Great Bear. She does not find it scary. She views this through Jonathans and Sophies eyes, very innocent and trusting. The parts where the bear got shot did not upset her because Jonathan and Sophie were there to help. There was a positive outcome in the movie. It also I believe portrayed the hunter as not so much mean but not fully understanding because all he thought he was doing was protecting his home and Sophie understood that when she asked the bear to fix the hunters home. I do recommend this movie. Wish I could find another movie that held her attention like this one.

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• Not particularly fun to watch.

  MartinHafer2014-06-28

  When The Great Bear begins, you'll think that this film is at least a decade old if not much older. This is because the computer generated graphics are quite blocky and unattractive. However, when you realize that the film just came out in 2011, you realize just how poor the film is graphically compared to the products coming from mainstream studios today. The films by Universal, Fox, Dreamworks and Pixar are so far beyond The Great Bear in quality that kids will no doubt also notice the difference. However, if the film has an excellent story, it can surely overcome the primitive graphics. Unfortunately, the graphics aren't the only problem with this tale. The story involves an 11 year-old named Jonathan and his 6 year-old sister, Sophie. She is like most little sisters--a bit of a pain and he's a lot like older brothers--he just wants her to leave him alone. However, the pair end up having a big adventure when they go to stay at Grandpa's house out in the country. There, they wander into the great forest--a scary and foreboding place. Soon, the sister disappears and when Jonathan finally locates her he realizes this is an odd place indeed! She's discovered a nice bear and it's her friend--and it's also larger than a dinosaur. Jonathan thinks she's been kidnapped and enlists the help of a completely insane hunter. However, eventually Jonathan realizes the bear is friendly and he now has to stop the hunter from trying to kill this nice creature--even if this means his life. In some ways, this film reminds me of My Neighbor Totoro, as the bear is very much like this magical Japanese creature. But this is where the similarity ends. Otherwise, the film seems very much like a heavy-handed and joyless film that has a very small audience. The film is too scary and violent for young kids and older audiences will probably feel it's too much of a kids' film. Its heavy-handed message that hunters are evil will probably annoy quite a few parents and delight the PETA-lovers out there. I was more upset at how one-dimensional and poorly written the guy was--regardless of whatever statement the filmmakers were trying to make. The bottom line is that the writing is broad and not particularly good. Combine that with the ugly graphics and it's a film you'd probably want to skip. Now I am not saying you necessarily should completely avoid the film--I just cannot see paying anything to rent or buy it. If it ever appears on a pay channel that you subscribe to and you have nothing better to do, then by all means see The Great Bear. Otherwise, you certainly could do better.

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• Could have been a much better family film

  Rectangular_businessman2017-09-10

  When I saw the first trailer of "The Great Bear", I thought that the plot seemed interesting and way more original than the usual premises of many other CGI flicks from the recent years. Now that I finally saw it, I think that this movie was a missed opportunity to create a more interesting kind of family film. The premise was good and had a lot of potential to be something much better but the final result isn't particularly good nor memorable. From a technical standpoint, "The Great Bear" has some glaring flaws: Most of the time it looks more like a low-budget video game cutscene rather than a proper film. On the positive side, the characters designs, despite being quite unremarkable, at least are not hideously unappealing (A very common recurrence in many low- budget CGI movies) The only character with a horrible design was the villain, and I know this is going to sound like a petty nitpick, but his ridiculously hairy arms managed to be distracting at certain points of the movie, killing the mood of some serious scenes… Imagine a human character with orangutan arms and the face of the Rasputin version from Don Bluth's Anastasia, and you will have an idea of how grotesque and unappealing his design was. With all that being said, I have to admit that the movie had a neat atmosphere which would have been perfect for a more mature kind of adventure film. I also like the fact that the movie (despite being aimed at kids) didn't shy away to include a certain level of violence and isn't afraid to mention death in the same condescending manner of many other mainstream animated movies. I guess the noticeable lack of gags is one of the reasons some viewers may consider this movie to be "joyless", but I personally think that "The Great Bear" would have been much worse if it tried to shoehorn some forced gags to the story. There are, however, a couple of awkward "cutesy" moments that didn't add very much to the plot but weren't particularly annoying either. The main two kids character were okay. The girl had a somewhat generic "girly" personality, but the boy, despite not being very likable, behaved in a more realistic manner than the stereotypical portrayal of children that is so common to see in media. His characterization wasn't entirely perfect, but it had potential. On the other hand, I found the villain to be generic and forgettable, despite the cruelty and unpleasantness of his actions. Not only his design was awful, his personality was also totally flat, without any interesting element that could differentiate him from the bunch, besides of his horribly hairy arms. And the titular great bear…All I can say that maybe the first trailers gave me the wrong impression, but I was expecting a completely different kind of character. Something a bit less generic, instead of the average "friendly-bear" archetype so common in cartoons. Well, at least he didn't talk and wasn't voiced by some over-hyped celebrity. The whole movie feels like a missed opportunity. Even when the CGI wasn't great, this aspect could have been compensated with a better story and a more solid characterization. Also a better villain without awful orangutan arms would have helped a lot.

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