The Country Bears (2002)

Beary Barrington goes on an adventure to save Country Bear Hall by getting the Country Bears back together for a reunion concert.

Director:

Peter Hastings

Writer:

Mark Perez

Stars:

Haley Joel Osment, Diedrich Bader, Candy Ford

4 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Haley Joel Osment	...	Beary Barrington (voice)
Diedrich Bader	...	Officer Cheets / Ted Bedderhead (voice)
Candy Ford	...	Trixie St. Claire (voice)
James Gammon	...	Big Al (voice)
Brad Garrett	...	Fred Bedderhead (voice)
Toby Huss	...	Tennessee O'Neal (voice)
Kevin Michael Richardson	...	Henry Dixon Taylor (voice)
Stephen Root	...	Zeb Zoober (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
Eli Marienthal	...	Dex Barrington

Storyline

Based on an attraction at Disneyland, the Country Bear Jamboree, this movie is one in a long line of live action Disney family films. The movie is a satire of "Behind the Music" rock and roll bands. Beary, a young bear raised by a human family in a world where humans and talking bears coexist, attempts to trace his roots. He meets up with the Country Bears, a long-since broken-up band, a parody of bands like the Eagles. Beary helps the Country Bears reunite for one final concert, while searching for who he truly is.

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Plot Keywords:

country music | car wash | elton john | police | bear | 

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Taglines:

It's A Bear Getting The Family Together!

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Genres:

Comedy | Family | Music | Musical

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Certificate:

G

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

26 July 2002 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Bears

Filming Locations:

Franklin, Tennessee, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$35,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$5,309,675, 28 July 2002, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$16,988,996, 3 November 2002

Company Credits

Production Co:

Walt Disney Pictures, Working Bear Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

88 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

This is the first Disney film to feature Christopher Walken, who never made another appearance in a Disney film until The Jungle Book (2016), 14 years later.

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Goofs

When Fred is in the boat on the way to save the rest of the crew, he turns the corner the boat goes up on one wheel and the two extra wheels underneath that make the stunt possible are briefly visible.

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Quotes

Reed Thimple: What is that?
Big Al: A sign.

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Crazy Credits

At the beginning of the credits, additional clips of music personalities telling their "memories" of the Country Bears are played on a video screen.

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Connections

Referenced in Nostalgia Critic: The Wicker Man (2014)

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Soundtracks

Can't Let Go
Written by Randy Weeks
Performed by Lucinda Williams
Courtesy of Mercury Records
Under license from Universal Music Enterprises

User Reviews

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!