The Country Bears (2002)

Director:

Peter Hastings

Writer (WGA):

Mark Perez (written by)

Release Date:

26 July 2002 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Family | Music | Musical

Tagline:

They're legends. Bearly.

Plot:

Based on an attraction at Disneyland, the Country Bear Jamboree, "The Country Bears" (2002) is one in a long line of live action Disney family films...

Plot Keywords:

Bear | Satire | Disney | Spoof | Box Office Flop

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Haley Joel Osment	...	Beary Barrington (voice)
Diedrich Bader	...	Officer Cheets / Ted Bedderhead (voice)
Candy Ford	...	Trixie (voice)
James Gammon	...	Big Al (voice)
Brad Garrett	...	Fred Bedderhead (voice)
Toby Huss	...	Tennessee O'Neal (voice)
Kevin Michael Richardson	...	Henry (voice)
Stephen Root	...	Zeb (voice)
Christopher Walken	...	Reed Thimple
Stephen Tobolowsky	...	Norbert Barrington
Daryl Mitchell	...	Officer Hamm (as Daryl 'Chill' Mitchell)
M.C. Gainey	...	Roadie
Alex Rocco	...	Rip Holland
Meagen Fay	...	Mrs. Barrington (as Megan Fay)
Eli Marienthal	...	Dex Barrington

Also Known As:

The Bears (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

88 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

USA:G (certificate #38711) | Brazil:Livre | South Korea:All | Canada:F (Ontario) | Canada:G (Alberta/British Columbia/Manitoba/Nova Scotia/Quebec) | Netherlands:AL | Argentina:Atp | Germany:o.Al. | UK:U | Singapore:PG | Australia:G

Filming Locations:

Franklin, Tennessee, USA

Company:

Walt Disney Pictures

Trivia:

After Tennessee and Trixie's performance in the bar, a bar patron comments that it was better than Eagles. The patron is Don Henley, who once performed with The Eagles and who provided the singing voice for Tennessee. The female companion he says it to is Bonnie Raitt, who provided the voice for Trixie.

Goofs:

Continuity: When the bears are being spun in the booth in the diner, they are alternately seated/dancing between shots. Tennessee also alternates between wearing a sweater and a vest.

Quotes:

Officer Ham: Give me a description of the child?
Dex: Oh! He has brown hair; ALL OVER HIS BODY!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Golgotha (2008)

Soundtrack:

Kick It Into Gear

wow, the guys at Disney are on some high quality drugs here...

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!