Review of Yogi Bear (2010) by Louise I — 15 Mar 2011

I LOVED Yogi Bear! I LOVED it, LOVED it, LOVED it ... as in the Hanna Barbera cartoon from the 60's! The Yogi Bear live-action film from 2010 doesn't share in that love ... like, at all. While being marginally-better than I had anticipated, it is still a monumental disappointment for fans of the short-lived cartoon series as I don't remember Yogi Bear actually being this dumb (as he was supposed to be somewhat smart [I mean he talked!!!] .

.. well, sorry schlubs, he's NOT too smart here as stupidity plays for laughs). Yogi and Boo Boo (voiced by Dan Aykroyd [SNL, The Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters] and Justin Timberlake [The Social Network, Shrek the Third, and some various SNL digital shorts]) play the bumbling bears we remember from the old series who walk on two feet, talk and like to steal "pic-a-nic baskets".

The movie is MOSTLY about saving Jellystone Park from a corrupt politician (an annoying idiot played by Andrew Daly who's mere appearance on screen makes you want to punch him) that wants to sell the land for logging revenue and the hardworking, dedicated Park Ranger (Tom Cavanagh - TV's Ed, How to Eat Fried Worms) who tries to save it.

Aiding our Park Ranger are the two bears and a documentary film maker played by the genius comedienne Anna Faris (The House Bunny, Lost in Translation, the Scary Movie franchise) who's comic chops aren't enough to save this dastardly bad film.

The film looks rather amateurish as Cavanagh and Faris's conversations with the bears don't match-up and their reactions to the bears' pratfalls and pranks seem disjointed. That the rest of the onscreen cast (including they uber-UBER-untalented T.

J. Miller [Gulliver's Travels, She's Out of My League, Get Him to the Greek]) are sub-par doesn't help the film at all. This is simply another story about saving the environment from evil do-badders while being highly implausible (if I ACCEPTED the talking bears and am calling out other elements of the film for being "implausible" -- it's saying something).

Hardly any of the joy of the old Yogi Bear is on display here and it is apparent that the director and screenwriters simply saw this as a money-maker (luckily they failed as it didn't make THAT much money) as they spent little-to-no time giving the audience THE Yogi Bear that inspired this lame riff of an updated adaptation.

Boo Boo isn't just a character name here ... there are boo boo's aplenty to be handed out here. I don't know which was worse with this one: that I didn't laugh or that they successfully made something funny un-funny? How many more horrible retellings of actually-decent fare are we going to have to witness before someone gets one of these things right?