At an orphanage, Mr. Cherrywood (Mickey Rooney) tells the orphans a bedtime story about three children who were helped by the Care Bears, colorful teddy bears who live in the clouds and help people share their feelings. While Secret Bear and Friend Bear (Eva Almos) try to convince orphaned and emotionally cold brother and sister Kim (Cree Summer Francks) and Jason (Sunny Besen Thrasher) of the value of friends, Tenderheart Bear (Billie Mae Richards) tries to help an accident prone lonely magician's apprentice named Nicholas (Hadley Kay) who only wishes to be as beloved as his mentor Mr. Fetuccini (Brian George). While organizing a box of odds and ends, Nicholas finds an old book that beckons him to open it and reveals a spirit (Jackie Burroughs) who takes the form of a face in a book of spells promising Nicholas the friends he's always desired. Unbeknownst to Nicholas, the Spirit intends to use Nicholas to do away with all caring and love in the world, leaving Kim, Jason, and the Care Bears to stop him.
Created by American Greetings in 1981, Care Bears was one of a number of Greeting Card properties to find itself marketed and merchandized in the decade with relaxed communication restrictions. With the property established in the minds of consumers with appearances in greeting card and toy form, American Greetings were keen to produce a feature film to expand the brand. Canadian animation house Nelvana Ltd. Still reeling from distribution problems and failure of their independently produced film Rock & Rule had opted to take contracting work to stay afloat (Inspector Gadget among other things) and were approved to produce the film. Made over a very quick eight month period and produced under its $2 million budget. The movie despite being released by independent distributor Samuel Goldwyn Company after major studios didn't see the potential of a film aimed strictly at children, the movie became a sleeper hit making an estimated $34 million in revenue and vastly outgrossing the much bigger budgeted Disney animated film of the year The Black Cauldron. The movie exploded the Care Bears popularity and helped to keep Nelvana afloat as a company despite no entitlement to profit participation. The movie also became the first in a wave of cheaply produced animated features based on toys or other established properties in a brief period of the mid-80s. The Care Bears Movie is undeniably a major event in feature animation from a historical perspective, but the movie itself? It is what it is.
Despite being produced on a lower budget, The Care Bears Movie more often than not looks adequate considering the resources they had on hand. Of course this movie won't match the level of detail and quality seen in Rock & Rule, but considering this whole movie's existence is predicated upon increasing brand awareness of the Care Bears and introducing the Care Bear Cousins as a subline it's a lot more effort than they probably needed to give to this film. The movie has very loose storytelling logic that plays more to emotions than it does to logic (not surprising for a film with caring and feelings as its bread and butter) and there is a structured plot with reasonable stakes that young kids in single digits will get invested in. Much like other such characters popular in the 80s the Care Bears don't have much depth as they're mainly defined by a singular gimmick that's usually in their name, Braveheart Lion being brave, Secret Bear always whispering, Grumpy Bear being grump, etc. The children characters of Kim, Jason, and Nicholas have more depth and actually go through some semblance of growth so you have to give credit there. I will say that from a nostalgic point of view, I do remember the villain, The Spirit voiced by Jackie Burroughs, to be quite threatening and unnerving growing up so the movie did have that element giving its antagonist a sense of legitimate threat.
The Care Bears Movie really defies any sort of review or analysis because it is meant for small children and that's fine. Sure I can think of better movies of this type that are specifically aimed at children in single digit ages such as Follow That Bird or Curious George, but The Care Bears Movie is okay for what it is.
