by JERRY ROBERTS
April 28, 2002
It must be retroactive because frankly, I just didn't care.
I would normally avoid a movie like this on general principle. I am not the target audience and therefore I consider my opinion rather moot. But there's something about Care Bears Movie II: A New Generation that forces me to speak out. The fact that this movie bores adults doesn't matter, but I find that this movie causes drowsiness and indifference in small children and on that level, I find it to be a real curiosity.
CBMII:ANG came out early in 1986 in the midst of an animation dead zone. It was four years before Disney started an animation renaissance with The Little Mermaid and animated films were pretty thin soup. Even the big D was churning out such bland musical noodles as Oliver and Company. Outside Disney it was worse. The anti-Walt market came in two flavors: Don Bluth and toy merchandise tie-ins.
The latter infused us with some of the worse movies of the decade as one 72 minutes toy commercial after another stained movie screens (my favorite ad campaign was for the My Little Pony movie in which the trailer’s narrator announced that the movie opened on the last day of school). This is the worst of the bunch, a sun-bleached can of sugar-corn, a production so lazy that the filmmakers didn't even take the time to put "The" in the title.
The movie is identified, not just as a sequel, but "A New Generation". What's the point when 75% of the characters are culled from the previous "effort". They haven't changed much since their last epic thrillride, nope, they're all just as cute, cuddly and gag-inducing as they were before.
The movie is actually just another piece of merchandise to throw on the pile like their over-populated line of teddy bears, their board game, their breakfast cereal, their album, their crowd control barrier (not available yet but just wait). They obviously stem off the success of The Cabbage Patch Kids. The CBs have little magical patches on their stomachs (yes, magical patches on their stomachs) which if you can believe this movie seems to be the solution to all their problems, which I will get to in a moment. They have interchangable names like Trueheart Bear, Funshine Bear, Playful Heart Bear, Nobleheart Bear; Swiftheart Bear then the outer-species Playful Heart Monkey and Bright Heart Raccoon (Where is Closing Credits Shark when you need him?). I find the Ninja Turtles no less irritating but at least I can tell them apart.
The story could have been plagerized from a coloring book. A demon named Dark Heart visits two last place loser kids at a summer camp and makes them an offer they can't refuse: Turn over the Care Bears to him and he will make them camp champs. In other words: The Devil descends upon two kids and offers them good fortune in return for the CB's mortal souls (The movie doesn't say that but I got the idea).
And now to those little patches on their stomachs. Somewhere in the Kingdom of Caring *eyes rolling* the CBs fight back using the power the extrudes from their little care-a-lot patches. When fused together it makes a happiness rainbow *gag*. You'll love this: When things turn their darkest the Care Bears (and I am not making this up) turn to the audience and ask us to start caring, caring, caring hard. It was at that point that I was on the sidelines with Grumpy Bears because at least he and I had something in common.
Now onto the movie's effect on children. I really can’t imagine the animation in this film keeping them awake that long. The tired, flat, unimaginative look of the movie lies somewhere between a cereal commercial and a public service announcement for Arbor Day. The songs by Carol and Dean Parks are dry, dull time fillers like “Flying Colors”, “Growing Up” and “Caring for You”. Remember those? Neither do I, let’s move on.
My biggest gripe (and I have plenty) is that the looks worse then the average low-rent kiddie TV show.In fact, if you knock off the ending credits (which are more or less and excuse to sell you the soundtrack) the movie only lasts about 65 minutes which is just about the length of three episodes of their television show.
Roger Ebert is fond of saying that "No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough". I can't prove it but I have a feeling that he had this movie in mind when he said it. Even the under five set would nod off before this one reached the halfway mark. Say, if you have unruly children then maybe this could be just the sleeping pill you're looking for!
