Saw this little movie at the second run theater with the pater (and then immediately had an attack of the bowels, which I presume was coincidental.) Somewhere between "not bad" and "pretty good," with nicely flexible animation of the lead as a bear, and the second half is mostly cute without being too cloying. First half had pacing problems, though, as it tried to cram in background exposition and crucial character relationships with heavy dialogue; one sequence which could have been a nice "brothers having fun, bonding"/wonders of nature bit was marred for me by painfully loud beat drums and Janet Jackson singing. Nothing against Janet, but that moment needed a nice simple orchestral piece, no vocals, or else the Bambi ethereal choir, since I couldn't make out most of the lyrics anyway. As far as animated animals in nature films go, it definitely beats "Spirit." Worth a rental at least, to my mind. (Though I was oddly amused by the film's use of facial hair as a sign of possible corruption or at least great emotional disturbance; lead turned bear's middle brother is happy go lucky and clean shaven until he thinks lead was killed by bear, and as he stalks bear/brother, he now has a Cantinflas moustcahe and a goatee. He's clean shaven again once the happy ending comes around).

Could add more, and credits, but this is mainly an excuse to quote one line, from a pair of Canadian moose, and post a doodle. "We're not really moose, eh? We're... squirrels!" "Actually, I'm a full-bred wolverine. Look at those choppers."

And inspired by Chris Classic, our own Alaric bedecked in antlers:

Always nice to start a new year with the gift of wolverines.