staff at Variety magazine stated that the "style ... tends towards a primer reading level." Halliwell's Film Guide called it "sluggishly animated and narrated". As with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The New York Times Janet Maslin found that the quality paled in comparison to Disney features (in this case, 1940's Pinocchio). The Los Angeles Times''' Charles Solomon (in his 1989 book Enchanted Drawings: The History of Animation), and Michael Janusonis of Rhode Island's Providence Journal, faulted the plot. The Evening Independents Moorhead and Jim Davidson of the Pittsburgh Press noticed at least two parallel storylines in the film, one of which involved the magician Nicholas. The National Coalition on Television Violence counted at least 20 acts of violence throughout the picture. Critics questioned its purpose as a feature-length advertisement for Care Bears merchandise; among them were Charles Solomon, Paul Attanasio, The Morning Call of Pennsylvania, and Bill Cosford of The Miami Herald. The Boca Raton News' Skip Sheffield commented, "I couldn't help being bothered by the blatant commercialism of this whole venture." The British magazine Films and Filming remarked: "The purpose of the film is presumably to sell more toys as it unashamedly pushes the message that without at least one Care Bear around life can be very lonely." Stoffman observed, "one of the youngest target audiences of any animated movie", as did the Halliwell's staff; film critic Leonard Maltin (in his Movie Guide); and Henry Herx (in his Family Guide to Movies on Video). The 1986 International Film Guide called it "an elementary piece of animation lacking colour and character, with not much humour, quite lacking in charm, and indifferently scored". Maltin gave it two stars out of four in his Movie Guide; similarly, the Gale Group publication, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever, gave it two bones out of four in its 1997 edition. According to Derek Owen of Time Out Film Guide, "Adults forced to accompany three-year-olds to the movie would have had a little moment of satisfaction when the time came to shovel the Care Bears toys out of the house into landfill sites." The mixed reception carried on in the years ahead: in her 1995 book Inside Kidvid, Loretta MacAlpine said of the film and its subsequent follow-ups, "If you can hack the sugarcoated attitudes of this group of cuddly bears, more power to you! There's nothing insidious about the Care Bears, but their overbearing sweetness may not