Although I instinctively recoil at any attempt by filmmakers to convert majestic animals into little more than furry, four-legged human beings, I had hoped that director Jean-Jacques Annaud would be able to avoid that pitfall in "Two Brothers," a tale of two tiger cubs who become separated for a year, only to be reunited when they are each fully grown. Instead, Annaud goes for broke in making these two magnificent creatures as human as is humanly possible, rendering them far less interesting in the process.
Upon their separation, one of the little ones gets carted off to a local circus where he is mistreated by his sadistic handlers, while the other is adopted as a pet by a young boy, the son of a local administrator. Then, once the tiger gets to be too big and too difficult to handle, he is sent to be part of a menagerie belonging to a spoiled prince who wants to turn him into a fearsome fighting beast. Guy Pearce plays a pragmatic but tender-hearted hunter/black marketeer whose life path intersects with those of the cubs throughout the course of the story, and whose character transformation is one of the least believable aspects of a film that is not all that rooted in credibility to begin with.
Admittedly, Annaud does an impressive job getting up close and personal with the tigers, and he certainly has an amazing ability to get these wild beasts to do what he wants them to do on camera. Unfortunately, just about everything he has them do smacks of anthropomorphic phoniness, essentially depriving them of their true nature as creatures of instinct and not calculation. As this is a family-oriented film, we get none of that National Geographic unpleasantness of the tigers tracking down and devouring their helpless prey. In fact, we wonder just what these animals eat in the course of a day to keep themselves so fit and healthy. The director also lays it on a bit thick with all his soulful close-ups of the tigers, particularly when they are cubs, looking just too sad-eyed and adorable for words. In addition, Annaud simply can't resist throwing in numerous scenes of lowbrow slapstick to show just what fun-loving roustabouts these dear little tigers are.
The film also suffers from a serious technical problem. I'm not sure what kind of camera Annaud used to film his scenes, but the picture tends to become very blurry every time either the camera moves or a figure moves in the frame. Given the number of shots of tigers racing across the screen, this visual imperfection becomes a serious detriment indeed.
I guess that if one views "Two Brothers" as a fantasy film of sorts, it makes the whole enterprise somehow easier to swallow. For me, I think I'll stick to National Geographic and the Discovery Channel and leave the animal fantasy stuff to Disney.
Upon their separation, one of the little ones gets carted off to a local circus where he is mistreated by his sadistic handlers, while the other is adopted as a pet by a young boy, the son of a local administrator. Then, once the tiger gets to be too big and too difficult to handle, he is sent to be part of a menagerie belonging to a spoiled prince who wants to turn him into a fearsome fighting beast. Guy Pearce plays a pragmatic but tender-hearted hunter/black marketeer whose life path intersects with those of the cubs throughout the course of the story, and whose character transformation is one of the least believable aspects of a film that is not all that rooted in credibility to begin with.
Admittedly, Annaud does an impressive job getting up close and personal with the tigers, and he certainly has an amazing ability to get these wild beasts to do what he wants them to do on camera. Unfortunately, just about everything he has them do smacks of anthropomorphic phoniness, essentially depriving them of their true nature as creatures of instinct and not calculation. As this is a family-oriented film, we get none of that National Geographic unpleasantness of the tigers tracking down and devouring their helpless prey. In fact, we wonder just what these animals eat in the course of a day to keep themselves so fit and healthy. The director also lays it on a bit thick with all his soulful close-ups of the tigers, particularly when they are cubs, looking just too sad-eyed and adorable for words. In addition, Annaud simply can't resist throwing in numerous scenes of lowbrow slapstick to show just what fun-loving roustabouts these dear little tigers are.
The film also suffers from a serious technical problem. I'm not sure what kind of camera Annaud used to film his scenes, but the picture tends to become very blurry every time either the camera moves or a figure moves in the frame. Given the number of shots of tigers racing across the screen, this visual imperfection becomes a serious detriment indeed.
I guess that if one views "Two Brothers" as a fantasy film of sorts, it makes the whole enterprise somehow easier to swallow. For me, I think I'll stick to National Geographic and the Discovery Channel and leave the animal fantasy stuff to Disney.