50
The Bear is a big, polished children's film, nothing more. [27 Oct 1989, p.G5]
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
50
Washington Post by Desson Thomson
Although this dialogue-free, mostly animal-action movie has its moments, Gerard (The Name of the Rose) Brach's man-meets-bear scenario is barely a soft, high-budgeted muzzle ahead of the Disney wilderness pictures. [27 Oct 1989, p.N43]
40
Although The Bear is as handsome as Quest for Fire - the story of an Ice Age tribe moving up the evolutionary ladder - it is also as turgid. [27 Oct 1989, p.12]
70
The New York Times by Janet Maslin
No less amazing than the material Mr. Annaud has captured on the screen is the fact that he has gone to such crazily elaborate lengths to capture it at all.
88
Warm, intelligent, humane, The Bear is everything you could hope for in an outdoor adventure. [27 Oct 1989, p.33p]
50
Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum
What ultimately prevents it from being something more is the fact that Annaud isn't a better director. Even the film's virtuosity as a technical feat is frequently undercut by the fact that one is too much aware of it as a stunt to accept it as a story on its own terms.
80
Los Angeles Times by Michael Wilmington
There has been a glut of animal movies in the last few years. But, of them all, The Bear -- sympathetically imagined, meticulously organized and grandly executed -- is easily the period's epic. [25 Oct 1989, p.F1]
40
Washington Post by Rita Kempley
It's certainly harrowing to sit through. Talk about your grizzly misadventures.
75
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
This is not a cute fantasy in which bears ride tricycles and play house. It is about life in the wild, and it does an impressive job of seeming to show wild bears in their natural habitat.
75
Portland Oregonian by Ted Mahar
while the conception of bear behavior is false and sentimental, the bears' performances are perfect, through a combination of training, staging and editing. [27 Oct 1989, p.F15]