TWO BROTHERS

Jean-Jacques Annaud shows again that he has a way with directing the beasties—this time two tumbly tiger cubs.

If you don't have children to watch this movie with, my second suggestion for a viewing buddy is your pet cat. I, myself, have one of those rare, extra-small barely-tamed black panthers (in her head at least), and she prowled around looking beastly with her favorite white mouse in her mouth while I was watching this. Perhaps it was the sounds of the jungle in the room, or the occasional roars, but I think she was feeling pretty stealthy and wild by osmosis.

The two brothers in Two Brothers are Kumal and Sangha, two tigers that grow from freakin' adorable cubs to big, pointy kitties through the course of the film. Hunters kill one of their parents, and the cubs are separated in the hubbub. One ends up in a circus and the other, for a time at least, ends up as a house pet for a rich, white, European family (watch carefully for Freddy Highmore of Finding Neverland as the boy with the best pet ever). But tiger kitties are destined to cause chaos in a fancy home, so Sangha gets sent to the royal private zoo, which is a rather hellish environment. It is destiny that the two brothers meet again as adults, and when they do... well... you can't help but hope for the best.

Director Jean-Jacques Annaud previously directed The Bear, which was a fascinating film about a big nasty bear out in the wild (remember the famous scene of the bear roaring over a cowering man?). Like that film, Two Brothers is at its best when it focuses on letting the big kitties do their thing. Annaud, bless his heart, doesn't feel the need for a narrator to tell you what is going on, so these parts feel like documentary, except for the fact that the tigers are so emotive that you can't help but get sucked into the drama of it all. The outdoor settings, in particular, are fantastic, taking place in dense jungles strewn-about with rotting stone temples (in the extras we learn that it was filmed in Cambodia).

The human characters are less interesting. Guy Pearce plays the hunter who originally gets the cats in trouble, then his heart changes when he crosses paths with them after their lives in captivity. But Pearce doesn't have much to work with, as the tigers steal the show whenever they are on screen. As the boy, Freddy Highmore is pleasingly un-obnoxious, and everyone else is just cartoonishly forgettable. There is one scene of the boy and his baby pet tiger asleep in the same bed, each with their own pillow, with the boy's hand resting on the kitty's big paw. It was so freakin' cute, I wanted to scream!

Two Brothers is definitely worth seeing for the wonderful tigers. Tiger fans, take note: There are a few extras on the DVD, including lots of making-ofs, and a short, fascinating, and educational documentary called "Wild About Tigers" that young and old will find interesting. Jean-Jacques Annaud is also quite entertaining, if only for his enthusiasm about tigers and his other wildlife subjects. I must admit, he's got one of the cooler jobs in the world!