Based upon seeing the trailer for this film, the fact the film was named in the USCCB's Top-10 for 2004, and also personally liking the film 'The Bear' - which was also directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud - I was quite looking forward to watching 'Two Brothers'. Needless to say having seen my summary above, that anticipation was not fulfilled. The trailer bore little resemblance to the 'plot' (if I can call it that) of the film, and far from being a continuation of his previous highly commendable film 'The Bear', 'Two Brothers' appears instead to be trading on Annaud's success in a manufactured attempt to cash in on all things animal. I'll try not to go on too much but the major faults of this film are: (1) The lack of a story and lack of direction - even the trailer says the film is about three things (the power of friendship, the bond between brothers and the spirit that connects us all); to concentrate on one of those would have been enough. Added to that at the end of the film we are given statistics on the decline in tiger numbers in the wild - giving the film an ecological dimension too; (2) Strange camera work and direction. I'm not sure Annaud knew what effect he was trying to achieve here but a lot of the camera work was strange - mixing from hand-held documentary-style shots to more artistically-staged shots to strange slapstick-style comedy of tigers knocking things over; (3) The hypocritical nature of the production. One of the main messages I took from the film is that capturing animals and taking them out of their natural habitats is not a good thing. Yet to put this film together must have taken a lot of prodding and prompting of trained animals; including getting them angry and agitated; and (4) The pretentious end to the film ('spoilers' ahead) in which Aidan asks the tiger for forgiveness and then just before the credits roll we are told that it's up to us to ensure the survival of the tigers. The first point on asking the tiger for forgiveness isn't even worth commenting upon. The second with respect to it being up to us to save the tigers is that in some ways it is, yes, but in all honesty the best thing that the mostly-Western audience watching this film will be able to do is change their voting habits to elect leaders that don't support corrupt governments that allow countries to get away with slaughtering tigers. Either that or to change our spending habits and pay people in these countries a fair wage so that they don't have to resort to illegal activities to make ends meet. Neither of those had anything to do with what this film was about. But regardless of those issues, okay there were 100,000 tigers in the wild a century ago and less than 5,000 left now, but in abortion we have a much worse crime on out hands, and I can think of far better and more ethical ways that the estimated €60m budget of this film could have been spent than making a sentimental film about tigers.