Care Bears - The Movie (Animated) > Reviews > This was only the beginning.

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Loved it
Story	Good
Characters / Performances	Good
Special Effects	Standard
How does it compare to similar films?	Good

Advantages:	Lovely family film .
Disadvantages:	No DVD extras .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

In 1985 the ever popular toy range The Care Bears was given its own feature length animated movie, which was one of the first of its kind to be based on a toy line and not the other way around.

The Care Bears movie begins divided between 2 sets of problems. Friend bear and Secret bear have traveled to earth to help Kim and Jason, a brother and sister who after loosing their parents refuses to become close to anyone, Tenderheart bear is sent to help Nicholas, a young magician’s apprentice. While Kim and Jason initially refuse the Care Bears help, an accident with the rainbow rescue beam( as sort of teleportation device) sees them in Care A Lot, the care bears cloud home, they are won round by the bears but their adventure is only just beginning. Tenderheart arrives too late for Nicholas who has been taken over by an evil spirit, determined to get revenge on the children that had laughed at him he casts a spell which stopped all the children caring, little does he know that the spirit plans to stop the whole world caring and destroy Care A Lot.

With children ceasing to care the care bears home is in great danger and is wracked by cloud quakes, damaging the buildings and rainbows. Kim, Jason, Friend and Secret bear offer to go back to earth to talk to Nicholas and defeat the spirit. They use the rainbow rescue beam but it is broken during another cloud quake and the quartet never make it to earth. Instead they land in the forest of feelings and strange but beautiful place, where they make some new friends the care bear cousins.

With the beam broken and the 4 missing a group of bear’s sets off down the river in the hopes of finding them, they are plagued all the way by a spell cast by Nicholas which takes on many beastly forms in an attempt to capture Kim and Jason.

Will Kim and Jason escape the spell, will Nicholas defeat the spirit, will the bears save their home? watch and you'll find out!

Cast-
With so many different characters there is quite an impressive list of voice actors, however I'll only list the main ones.

Mickey Rooney ... Mr. Cherrywood
Jackie Burroughs ... The Spirit
Sunny Besen Thrasher ... Jason
Eva Almos ... Friend Bear/Swift Heart Rabbit
Bob Dermer ... Grumpy Bear
Jayne Eastwood ... Mrs. Cherrywood
Gloria Figura ... Bedtime Bear
Brian George ... Mr. Fetucini
Luba Goy ... Lotsa Heart Elephant/Gentle Heart Lamb
Janet-Laine Green ... Wish Bear
Terri Hawkes ... Baby Hugs
Dan Hennessey ... Brave Heart Lion
Jim Henshaw ... Bright Heart Raccoon
Hadley Kay ... Nicholas
Marla Lukofsky ... Goodluck Bear/Playful Heart Monkey
Pauline Rennie ... Cozy Heart Penguin/Grams Bear
Billie Mae Richards ... Tender Heart Bear
Cree Summer ... Kim

DVD-
The DVD is certificated U. suitable for the whole family
Runtime- 77 mins approx
Colour
Stereo

The DVD (at least my version anyway) has no special features or extras. It has a scene selection menu and subtitles.

Price & Availability-
The DVD is widely available both in stores and online. Somewhere like W H Smiths, Virgin or HMV will have it in their kids sections for about £5. Online you can pick it up for as little as 99p so it's always best to shop around.

My Opinion-
I remember watching this movie as a little girl, my sister had been bought it on one of those things called VHS and it was one of our favorites, at the same time we had each received a stuffed toy character from the movie which somehow bought it to life for us. Now I have children of my own and use them as an excuse to revert back to my childhood for a little while, that's what having kids is all about!

As an adult now I have a lot of nostalgic feelings about the movie, however if you take all of the history I have with the film away it is still a sweet kids film with wonderful lessons in friendship. It is brightly animated with the fantastically coloured bears and their funny little tummy symbols, their homelands are equally vivid and imagination grabbing and when you team all this with sway along, toe tapping songs you have a real recipe for success.

The animation isn't too detailed or fussy emphasizing the cute and fuzziness of the bears and their animal cousins. It has not been re-mastered or enhanced so the fact that it maintains its vibrancy is incredible, I have seen other feature length animations of the same time period that look almost washed out now.

The characters are well created with the bears being suitably adorable and the spirit and her spells being just on the right side of scary, you have to remember this is a kid’s film so it can’t be too terrifying! It is easy to identify with Nicholas who in his desperation to make friends gets mixed up with the wrong people, in this case an evil spirit intent on taking over the world! Kim and Jason are probably the weakest characters going from resistant to friendship to helping the bears all too quickly, but I suppose with the developing storyline of the spirit taking over Nicholas the 2 children had to be won around quickly. My favourite has to be Lotsa Heart Elephant who, on his first encounter seems like he’ll be huge and scary, is actually a cute little pink guy with an adorable squeaky voice but great spirit and determination (definitely a size isn’t important moral here)

This is another one of those "lets teach our kids lessons and morals" films, as most of them were back then. You can really get the feel of the friendship aspect and the importance of doing good, making sacrifices, helping others and being determined. But I guess I’d rather my little ones sit down and watch a film with these sort of lessons then a cartoon such as "Horrid Henry" which is more likely to encourage bad behaviour.

As for my kids, well Elsa is a little too young to really appreciate it (being 1 and all!) but she's still taken by the colours and loves to dance along in her insane little way to all the songs. Christopher loves the film and picks it out quite often to watch, in fact he insisted so much on Sunday morning that we watch it that we ended up sat around in our pj's until lunch time enjoying the movie together. He really picks up on the storyline, despite only being 3, and really feels the excitement and adventure as the story unfolds. I could quite happily watch him watching the movie, his expressions and enjoyment alone are entertainment enough for me.

It's a shame there are not any special features or bonuses on the DVD but I guess back then such things didn't exist, so it's only to be expected.

All in all this is a lovely family movie, ok I know it wont be everyone’s cup of tea, but my children like it and that little girl that hides inside me and pops out ever so often likes it too. I find it a real light hearted feel good film and would certainly recommend it. 

Pictures for the review

Display pictures

Kim and Jason