Disney does better on Bear sequel

Toon Talk:  Brother Bear 2[S]lowly and surely, the DTV sequels (and spin-offs, such as The Lion King 1 ½) began to increase in quality, both story-wise and, most impressively, with the animation. While such titles as Cinderella II: Dreams Come True and Stitch! The Movie had substandard, Saturday morning-level production values, more recent releases such as Kronk’s New Groove and, most especially, Bambi II, have displayed close to feature quality animation.

Happily, I report that the newest video follow-up, Brother Bear 2 (available today), falls into the latter camp, with lush backgrounds and top-notch character work to just about equal it’s Oscar-nominated predecessor. But, quite impressively, BB2 does it one better by delivering a story that avoids the pitfalls of the first film, making it--dare I say it--actually better then the original Brother Bear.