Bears (film)

Bears is a 2014 nature documentary film about a family of brown bears living in the coastal mountain ranges of Alaska. Directed by Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey and narrated by John C. Reilly, Bears was released theatrically by Disneynature on April 18, 2014, the seventh nature documentary released under that label.

Plot
An Alaskan brown bear mother named Sky gives birth to two cubs named Scout and Amber in her den on a mountain slope. When April comes the bears will be ready to leave the den. As the bears leave the oncoming summer brings with it a threat of avalanches. The bears are able to avoid disaster. Upon reaching the lush valley below, the cubs meet the other bears, some of which pose a threat to the cubs; among these bears are Magnus, a big healthy male, and Chinook, an older male. The family works together to survive the spring, with Sky keeping the cubs safe from Tikaani, a pesky lone wolf. The cubs get to know how to defend themselves in encounters with Tikaani. Also the family must stay clear of the frequent dominance fights between Magnus and Chinook.

As the spring wears on, the cubs learn about how to catch food. Sky leads the cubs to the mudflats to dig up clams hiding under the mud. The family has a good time until the tide turns. In the chaos, Scout gets stranded on a sandbar. Unable to do much, Sky can only look on as the cub tries to free himself. He finally comes to his senses and swims over to Sky. The family heads to higher ground, where, after another encounter with Magnus, Chinook attacks again. As Sky fights off the male bear, Amber and Scout hide in a nearby log. After Chinook is driven away, Amber reappears from the log, but Scout is nowhere to be seen. Sky looks for him all day, but he's nowhere to be seen. Eventually, just as Sky and Amber are about to give up searching, Scout comes right back out of the log—he'd been hiding there the whole time.

When summer comes, so does the yearly salmon run. Dozens of bears gather along salmon streams on the coast to get the best of the run before it ends. This also leads in an increase in dominance fights between Magnus and Chinook. Sky, meanwhile, is looking for a different place to find food. A raven leads Sky and her two cubs to the golden pond just in time to save the brown bear family from their starvation. She and her cubs leave Katmai National Park and Preserve and head north to Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, where a pool filled with salmon supposedly awaits. When the bears arrive, however, they find that the salmon are not there yet. They wait and wait, and the situation gets worse by the hour. When it seems that their journey was for nothing, the salmon arrive. After the family fill themselves on the riches of the feast, they head back to Katmai as winter approaches. When the first snow arrives, all the bears head back up the mountains to their dens to sleep out the harsh cold winter. The cubs have learned a lot from their first year which will greatly help them for the rest of their lives.

Production
The central brown bear family was filmed at Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska.

Fothergill and Scholey previously directed African Cats together.

Olivia Holt sang her song "Carry On" for the movie.

Release
Bears was released in the United States on April 18, 2014, four days before Earth Day.

The song, "Home" by Phillip Phillips appeared in the trailer and in the movie.

Home media
Bears was released on Blu-ray and DVD combo pack on August 12, 2014.

Reception
Bears received positive reviews from film critics. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a score of 89% based on reviews from 56 critics, with an average score of 7/10, with the critical consensus listed as saying "Sweet, beautifully filmed, and admirably short on sugarcoating, Bears continues Disneynature's winning streak". On Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 based on reviews from critics, the film has a score of 68 based on 20 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews ".