Yogi Bear

When a cartoon is turned into a full-length movie, the filmmakers have one of two choices: stay true to the spirit of the source material or take a new, hip approach. Examples of the former include “George of the Jungle”, “Inspector Gadget” and “The Simpsons Movie”. It is obvious that the filmmakers of “Yogi Bear” wanted to stay true to the cartoon that adult fans watched as children on Saturday mornings. Unfortunately when you chose the first tactic, the odds say that your film will not be a huge hit. While “Yogi Bear” offers nothing really special, it does have some good qualities. My dad is a fan of Yogi Bear and he had fun re-experiencing a part of his childhood while watching this film. I have seen Yogi Bear cartoons myself and so I liked the film too. The humor was similar to the cartoon and appealed to all ages. The work on the computer-generated characters was successful in bringing these cartoon bears to life. The cast was well chosen also.

When I go to a film of this genre, I anticipate a story that would have worked as a TV episode but it has been stretched into a movie. This was the case with “Yogi Bear” and so my expectations were met. Usually when the villain’s true intentions are captured on tape, the footage or audio is played back as a surprise to those on screen as well as to those in the audience. Examples of this can been seen on “Monsters Inc.” and “Batman Returns”. “Yogi Bear” however used no such surprise in that our heroes are shown remembering about the camera in Boo-boo’s tie. We also see Ranger Smith putting the clip on the screen for the press to see, which violates the way this story device is usually handled. The script had bodyguards as obstacles but they were too easy to bypass. This part of the climax failed. On a better note, the cast in this film fit perfectly in this genre. When I first heard that Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake were going to voice Yogi and Boo-boo respectably, I was skeptical. While watching the film, I could not recognize either of the actors. They did very well in recreating the voices of these beloved characters. Aykroyd was a fan of Yogi Bear as a child and so that explains a lot. Anna Faris did great in “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” and that made her ideal for the role of Rachel. The best performance in the film goes to T. J. Miller. I liked him in “Cloverfield” and “How to Train Your Dragon” and his persona made him the perfect Ranger Jones. All of the characters, (especially the villains) felt like Hanna-Barbera characters and that was important for me.

I think the film would have done better under “Toy Story 2” co-director Ash Brannon. Another change I would have made concerns Boo-boo. He always had sleepy eyes in the cartoons and I did not see that very much in the movie. The story of “Yogi Bear” was okay, the cast was entertaining and the special effects were fine. It is like I said however; the film offered nothing really special unlike “The Flintstones” or “Scooby-Doo”.

3 Stars