Critics are suggesting that Disney's Brother Bear will drive another nail into the coffin of traditional animation, although, they agree, it's not the animation but a preachy script that needs burial. Stephen Cole in the Toronto Globe & Mail comments that by the end of the movie, "Brother Bear dies on its paws just when it should be melting our hearts. Native spirituality, pacifism, inter-species friendship, and goofball humor are just too many ingredients to fit in." Stephen Holden of the New York Times calls it a "potpourri of myth and fantasy [that] is swirled into a vague, all-purpose pop sermon whose message of restraint and empathy with all creatures great and small evokes everything from practicing the golden rule and following the Ten Commandments to supporting animal rights." Lou Lumenick in the New York Post calls it "hibernation-inducing." Still, many critics suggest that parents will find little to object to about the film and that small children will find it absorbing, and while Gene Seymour of Newsday says that it all represents "a play-it-safe pastiche, Stephen Rea in the Philadelphia Inquirer concludes: "With top-notch (traditional) cartooning talent and a script laced with jokes that parents and guardians can chuckle at, Brother Bear is a solid entry in the family film fare category."
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