Title: Yogi Bear Director: Eric Brevig Staring: Dan Aykroyd, Justin Timberlake Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures Genre(s): Comedy Rated:       (For some mild rude humor)   Buy From Amazon.com: DVD / BluRay

CONSUMER ADVICE

Parents, there is nothing offensive in this film. Recommended all ages.

There is a scene late in “Yogi Bear” where the title character is attempting to be a real bear for once. One thing that real bears do is forge for food. He spends a long time trying to suck down a maggot before it pops out of his nose and flies towards the audience. Why this scene stood out is this: It’s not cheap or easy to animate this big talking bear. It costs millions and dollars of computers, voice work, and screen writing to make this. It takes hours of painstaking animation to make it look right. All that time and money so that a maggot can shoot out of a bears nose? I dare you to come up with a better example how easily Hollywood can piss away it’s hard earned money then this.

“Yogi Bear” is another old cartoon series that has been given the live action treatment. I would have hoped that “Marmaduke” would have been a strong warning that movies like this were not sure bets at the box office, but I guess the message didn’t take. So now we have “Yogi Bear,” a movie that is not quite as bad as “Marmaduke,” but it’s still wildly stupid. The story (such as it is) involves Yogi Bear (Dan Aykroyd) and his pal Boo Boo (Justin Timberlake) stealing picnic baskets from campers at Jellystone Park. At one point though the park is in danger of being shut down by the mayor because it’s “not making it’s money back.” Actually, I believe most parks exist as a service to the community rather then as a business, but whatever.

The only way to save lies in the fact that Boo Boo’s pet turtle is a rare Frog Turtle that was thought to be extinct, which makes it an endangered animal, which means the park can’t be touched if the turtle is reveled to the world. And this, ladies and gentlemen, proves just how stupid this screenplay really is: Why the heck does a turtle that looks like a frog qualify as an endangered species but a TALKING BEAR doesn’t?! Did the screen writers even read their own screenplay? Is this something they can honestly say they’re proud of? This isn’t even the only problem with the movie. Ranger Smith (Tom Cavanagh) does little in the movie and his blond love interest (Anna Faris) does even less.

Every story twist you can see coming and all the jokes fall flat. As for the voice over work...well, Dan Aykroyd does a passable job as Yogi, but Justin Timberlake is sounds so much like Boo Boo that you’d swear they got the original voice actor back. This brings into question why the studios would pay these actors the money they do to sound nothing like themselves, but I’ll chalk it up to stunt casting and move on. Now I know that this all sounds harsh because this is a kids film and most kids will like it...right? Maybe. But folks, think about it: Right now “Tangled,” “The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” “Megamind,” and “TRON: Legacy” are all in theaters. There’s plenty of quality family films to watch than this. Yogi may be smarter than the average bear, but his film is far stupider than the average family film.