Yogi Bear

Yogi Bear is about Jellystone Park about to get closed down because the town is bankrupt. Due to this, Ranger Smith (Tom Cavanagh) throws a party for Jellystone so more visitors come in, more visitors, more money. But Yogi screws it up. So now they must save the park somehow before it gets closed. Yogi (Dan Aykroyd) and Boo Boo (Justin Timberlake) do a good job at voice acting. Tom Cavanagh also does a good job, but everyone else does a bad job. ESPIALLY THE MAYOR (Andrew Daly) HE DOES NOT EVEN TRY. The 3D is pretty good, so if you have a Blu-ray 3D at home, try to rent this movie.

OVERALL: It's funny, great 3D, and pretty good. Go see it, you won't be disappointed.

In the new animation Yogi Bear even the voices of Dan Aykroyd as Yogi and Justin Timberlake as Boo Boo aren't able to take a lumbering script and make it less than soporific for adults. But, then, this movie is for youngsters about 5 years old, no older, so it has found an audience that might be mildly amused, as mine was.

In this derivation from the once popular TV series, a documentary filmmaker, Rachel (Anna Farris), falls in love with Ranger Smith (Tom Cavanagh) while she witnesses his struggle with nefarious forces that threaten the future and ecology of Jellystone National Park. Yogi and Boo are not a help even though they'd like to be because Yogi regularly disproves his boast that he's "smarter than the average bear." This comedy, magnified but not improved, by 3-D is not smarter than the average animation.

Not an awful movie. Not one that I would take a date to go see, though. Odd...one of the jokes was talking about getting a date with a young woman, and Yogi mentions urinating on her. I was wondering why that had to be included. Really don't want to talk to my kids about urination. To throw that into a movie that is so obviously a kids movie seems out of place, like a sex scene in a Dr. Seuss book. Or day care advertisements in Penthouse. At the very least, it was odd. But the plot is predictable and easy on the mind. There is very little deviation or subplots that play out, and the ending is easy to guess. But, again, it's a kids movie. So, I took my 5 and 3 year old, and the 5 year old giggled, and the three year old played with my smartphone. I napped. I do have one other flaw for this movie...why do they think that using Dan Akroyd or Justin Timberlake increases the sales for this movie? Or any movie out there that uses big name stars for a cartoon? What's the point? Dan was just fine, and Timberlake was very good as boo-boo, but there are hundreds of voice actors in Hollywood. This could have been a huge film for one of them. Instead, the producers overpaid two big stars that could have literally phoned in their parts. Is that why I pay 20 bucks for popcorn? Because of overpaying big stars for parts like this? I think it might be...

Yogi Bear is not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but it is not wholly deserving of the hate I have seen it get. When I first saw it advertised, in all honesty Yogi Bear looked like an abomination. I thought that a memorable Hanna-Barbera character in a movie in 3D would not work, the plot line seemed uninteresting and then when I saw that Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake as the cartoon characters that put the final nail in the coffin.

But despite the many reservations I had of Yogi Bear, I still went to see it. And I kind of enjoyed it. That said, it does have a lot of problems, and I'd say some of these problems are quite bad. I am very fond of the Yogi Bear cartoon, and I do think the movie did a serviceable enough job to maintain its spirit. The movie though does have a very predictable and sometimes generic plot line, but in some ways the original cartoon had its predictable spots as did almost all the Hanna Barbera cartoons. The script does have its funny and humorous spots, but along the way there is the odd lame joke and cheesy line complete with some very unoriginal slapstick. Yogi Bear is also too short, and has some very uneven pacing feeling rushed one minute and too slow the next. And I wish I could praise some of the live-action actors, but I can't as a vast majority of the actors are very lacking in charisma and warmth.

However, despite what the advertising suggested, Yogi Bear does look quite decent. The scenery and colours are vibrant and colourful, Yogi and Boo Boo are quite well-modelled and the editing is crisp enough. And the 3D while not exceptional and perhaps not always necessary is nowhere near as bad as I feared. When it comes to any memorable scenes or set pieces, the standout is the white-water rafting ride down the river, which was inspired and visually inventive. The soundtrack is rousing and energetic, there are some dialogue and jokes I enjoyed as most of the banter and chemistry between Yogi and Boo Boo are a joy. The voice work is also better than I thought, Aykroyd's voice takes a while to get used to but he does make an effort and it shows, but Timberlake(who I actually was more worried about) nails Boo Boo.

In conclusion, entertaining but too flawed to make a bigger impression. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Yogi bear, a piece of ancient history comes to life in a film that like the first Garfield film combines real life acting with computer animated action. The story is easy enough: living in a park with his friend Booboo his only "work" is attempting to steal food from people coming there for a picnic. His idyllic life is threatened though - first there's the ranger that is on their tail and then there is the governor who wants to tear down the forest to make money for the city. But Yogi is a versatile bear, and solutions are in the making.

This is a typical kids film, designed for kids of all ages with a bias towards kids around 4 to 8 years old. The story is light and even the most dark spots are sweetened with enough sugar to make a layer cake or two.

For the parents it is endurable. It's not quite as fun as some of the other films in the same age group out there as it lacks any of the harmless innuendo that makes such films so much better, but it is endurable. The worst would probably be having to see the scenes that combine the real actors with the animated ones - the interaction shows all too clearly that they were blue-screen acted with the actors looking into the distance or somewhere different altogether while the animation should be happening right in front of their noses.

5 out of 10 misshapen attempts at resurrection childhood heroes