First shot of animation: a fox runs through a field, carrying her baby, escaping hunters

This one starts so ominously? Just spooky wind noises over a bleak gray forest, no score or color through the credits.

This plot only works if they’re gay. Nobody ever made “what if Romeo and Juliet were close pals?”. And Chief should have died. Nobody swears deadly revenge over a broken leg either.

The last 15 years of production have been talented people making the best of short budgets, and now all the veterans have retired. It looks like another studio scraping together the cash to imitate the house style with a talking animal picture. Big highlight is the bear fight. The extreme closeups that threat the bear as more terrain than character are great, and it’s obviously the foundation Keane would build on for the Beast.

Backgrounds are used well. The rail bridge and big waterfall are both focal points on background paintings one scene before they’re the site of major action.

It’s been more than 20 years since one of these aimed to be something more than ‘pleasant’ and I am drowning.