Directed by Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey. Rated G.

With seizure-inducing offerings like The Lego Movie being the new normal for kids’ films, a proudly old-fashioned True Life Adventure like this one should warm the hearts of proudly old-fashioned families.

Bears takes us to the Alaska Peninsula for a year in the life of the brown bear Sky and her two offspring, Amber and Scout. They emerge from hibernation and make the long, perilous trek from mountaintop to rivers filled with salmon, avoiding starvation, predators, Hollywood film crews, and country bear jamborees as they go.

It’s majestic fare for sure. Aerial shots of an avalanche are particularly breathtaking, but you can feel directors Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey—both veterans of the Disneynature imprint with African Cats as a recent joint effort—straining to fashion a narrative out of all this splendid footage.

By the time Sky and her cubs are feasting on their favourite food, Bears has almost turned itself into a soap opera, with alpha male Magnus, menacing outcast Chinook, and scheming wolf Tikaani all giving Mom something to worry about besides getting milked to death by the brats.

A mutually beneficial relationship with a raven, given the curiously uncute name Raven, provides another low-impact thread to the story, but it’s the up-close-and-personal time with Amber and Scout that makes Bears worth a visit. They’re adorable, of course, even though you’d want to throw a rock at them in real life.

He’s no Werner Herzog—or Winston Hibler, vintage Disney fans—but John C. Reilly in understated goofball mode provides appropriately bearlike narration. When he chides an amorous but unsuccessful Magnus for not “adding a little mystery” to his game, some parents might find themselves snapped pleasantly out of their hangover nap.