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How does one even begin describing the Care Bears? Well, let’s see. They are somehow a mix of bears and cake and they claim that they care, and I mean really care about everyone, including people who go slow on the cash points. Starting from 1985, The Care Bears have been in several movies like, “Care Bears II: A New Generation”, “Care Bears VII: The Wrath Of Khan,” and “Care Bears LMCIXX: Care Bears At Aldi”. There was also a TV series that came out, but that was solely centered around a birthday cake that went missing.
I distinctly remember absolutely loving Care Bears as a kid. I would make it a point to sit in front of the TV to watch it, and while initially it did creep me out, I was transfixed. Other things that scared me were Evil Zippy in Rainbow Christmas, The Test Card, and surprisingly, my own shadow. But returning back to the topic, does it still creep me out? Well, 35 years later I still ask myself this question, and I truly believe that watching this movie is always going to be full of surprises.
Prior to the starting credits, a character named Mr. Cherrywood tells a story to a group of orphans. This will be important later, although Mr. Cherrywood does not really have a lot of significance so just ignore this for now.
We start off, and as you would imagine, with a song (you guessed it; a Carole King song) that highlights how you can find the Care Bears living in the clouds while fixing cars, similar to being a more wholesome version of Wheeler Dealers.
Following this, we are introduced to our first two human characters, Kim and Jason. Unfortunately, Kim and Jason don’t have parental figures and as a result, have made the decision to hate every single person in the world. I hate most people too, so I can relate to Kim and Jason.
Their anti-humanity beliefs are soon disrupted by the entrance of Secret Bear and Friend Bear who, for whatever reason, decide that they want to mess around with their affairs.
The bears come to the conclusion that they are capable of changing Kim and Jason’s perspective on humanity for the better. Ignoring the fact that their goal is somehow made more ridiculous when considering the fact that Kim and Jason probably think that they are actually hallucinating.
During this, we meet Nicholas. Nicholas is a very lonely magician’s assistant with no friends. That’s sad. Maybe he needs to try Tinder. Again, the Care Bears believe everything can be fixed by a bright-colored bear appearing, so they send Tenderheart Bear to Nicholas to help him make friends.
This is the first hint of danger: Before Tenderheart goes to help, Nicholas discovers a magic book hidden in a box of trash. The book happens to be a woman and is somewhat evil.
I don’t know the book lady’s name, so I shall name her Janet. Janet is competent and gets things done, but she does not seem very nice. I have to say, I was afraid of Janet back when I was a younger child. I have grown up to be an evil genius after all.
Janet explains to Nicholas that he can resolve all of his issues if he employs her spells to transform him into a great magician, who he will have a lot of fans. I fear these spells are going to be evil. I have this feeling because I have watched this movie so many times I have memorized every single detail. But at this point, Janet is claiming she will help Nicholas.
Now we turn back to Care A Lot, and now we learn that the Care Bears made a Star Trek-style transporter. It has been broken forever, but those two dumb baby ones are able to fix it by breaking it. In the process, Secret Bear with Friend Bear gets transported to Care A Lot along with Kim and Jason.
There follows another beautiful song where Kim and Jason understand the joy of Christmas. Now everything is taken care of.
As Nicholas attempts to become a stage magician with the aid of Janet, he gets everything wrong, and the audience starts to laugh at him. He seems to be quite furious about this, and I think it would have been much funnier had he gone with the whole Tommy Cooper thing. He probably would, but Janet decides to butt in and convinces him that the laughter is directed towards him, and that’s why they loathe him. While trying to write, I quite often have a Janet in my head quite a bit too.
While aided by Janet’s womanly magic, Nicholas makes the audience members instantly turn to one another with extreme hatred. Laughter ensues as they start fighting, resulting in funny expressions on their faces.
Not long after that, people all around the globe seem to have lost interest and slowly stopped caring, which ultimately means that everyone despises each other, or in other terms, Twitter. This might just call for the Care Bear apocalypse. Take cover because powerful thunderstorms have invaded Care A Lot, ‘Caring Meter,’ the contraption that monitors the amount of love and basic warmth the world has, has dropped “a whole two points!” The Conservatives are advancing, don’t you think?
For some unknown reason, the Care Bears need to take a boat trip. Perhaps they are attempting to recover lost emotions. Regardless, they make a pit stop in the ‘Forest of Feelings’ and meet their future Care Bear Cousins. Spoilers ahead, they meet later in the sequel.
Along their trip, they have another detour where they stop to sing and dance at a maypole. At one point they are ambushed by a treant, but a small blue woodland creature came to the rescue. It’s possible that someone at Sega was a fan of this movie.
The blue rabbit spins around the base of the tree until it is dizzy, running in circles until it becomes confused. After the tree creature was thoroughly amused, it just walked away.
In an attempt to block the Care Bears, Janet set up the evil tree. After it fails to work, she goes back with an evil bird this time. After the Care Bears defeat the bird with a ‘Care Bear Stare’ I still can’t figure out why they didn’t just stare at the tree instead of waiting for Sonic the Rabbit to save them.
During all of this James and Nicholas have turned the whole world into a dystopian, dark, emotionless wasteland.
Nicholas is preparing for his final spell and collecting the needed ingredients, but takes a break to try to stop Kim and Jason from… Existing. People say this movie is for kids but often forget the part with a killer magician chasing around two kids in an abandoned funfair.
Did you know: the music in this scene sounds similar to the Hang Tough tune from Gladiators, although I could just be misremembering things?
Their remaining hope is to slam the book shut and place it inside a box, trapping Janet inside. Luckily, Jason has been keeping the key handy in his pocket for just such an eventuality. The problem comes when he approaches Janet with the key, and she consumes it.
She banishes Janet back to where she came from. Nicholas makes friends with Kim and Jason, and they all live wonderfully ever after.
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