Yogi Bear a Hit (but Only if You’re Under the Age of 10)
Jellystone Park is being sold! Dastardly Mayor Brown (Andrew Daly), who is running for State Governor, and his brownnosing Chief of Staff (Nathan Corddry) have come up with this plan in order to fix the city budget deficit, green spaces, public parks and furry mountain creatures be darned. It’s up Ranger Smith (Tom Cavanagh) and wildlife documentary filmmaker Rachel (Anna Faris) to try and stop them, their only worry that the picnic basket loving Yogi Bear (voiced by Dan Aykroyd) and his diminutive best friend Boo Boo (voiced by Justin Timberlake) might get in the way and make an even bigger mess of things.
Boo Boo and Yogi are after picnic baskets in Yogi Bear © Warner Bros.
I can’t say I’m surprised that someone would strike upon the idea of giving Hanna-Barbera Productions’ popular cartoon character Yogi Bear a live-action motion picture, especially in the wake of the massive box office takes for Garfield and the two Alvin and the Chipmunks features. At the same time, especially after viewing the noxious trailers, I can’t say I was all that excited about being forced to watch the darn thing, either, the chances of it being even slightly worthwhile sitting precariously between nil and none.
Truth be told Yogi Bear isn’t near as terrible as I surmised it would be beforehand. Actors Cavanagh and Faris realize the unbelievably slight nature of what it is they’ve signed up for, while screenwriters Jeffrey Ventimilia (Tooth Fairy), Joshua Sternin (Surviving Christmas) and Brad Copeland (Wild Hogs) don’t exactly go out of their way to concoct a complicated or multidimensional script. It’s all very straightforward, everyone keeping things as simplistic as possible in order to neither confuse nor bore their pintsized adolescent target audience.
Not that I’m making the claim that this movie is anything close to good. It isn’t, not by a long shot, but it isn’t painful, annoying or full of gross-out bits of humor, either. Some of the sight gags are fairly decent, while the CGI effects used to bring both Yogi and Boo Boo to life are far better than they have any right to be. Whenever the movie followed the basic line of the original cartoon series (the two bears coming up with unique ways to steal picnic baskets, failing miserably each and every time) I even admit to giggling a time or two, something about these sequences bringing a smile to my face that I only partially regret.
For my part, here is what I view as being the bottom line: Aykroyd is actually kind of an inspired choice to voice Yogi, Timberlake doesn’t embarrass himself as Boo Boo, Faris still deserves better (but a few more of these and I’ll be beyond caring anymore) and there are some kind of great sight gags revolving around an endangered turtle. Everyone under the age of 10 at my preview screening enjoyed themselves beyond measure, and there was very little that could be considered crass or offensive to give parents pause.
Yogi Bear isn’t great cinema, heck it’s not even good cinema, but it’s hardly as bad as it could have been. Director Eric Brevig (Journey to the Center of the Earth) does a workmanlike job keeping things relatively balanced and, like I already stated, the target audience gobbled this one up as if it were a freshly made hot out of the oven pie. Other than that, there isn’t much else to say.
Film Rating: êê (out of 4)
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