Movie Review: 'Yogi Bear'

I usually react in one of two possible ways after seeing a truly awful movie. Most often, I want to find a gun and shoot all those involved dead…but sometimes (albeit rarely), the second reaction occurs: I leave the theater not angry, but baffled. Instead of wanting the filmmakers to die a painful death, I instead, ironic as it may seem, want to be in their company; I want nothing more than to amiably sit down with those involved, and have a real, honest conversation with them during which I would get to ask them the inevitable question: why, why, did you think making this movie was a good idea? Because really, I want to know. I want to shake hands with those who pitched the idea and got it green lit, because they are clearly Jedi masters of bullshit. This phenomenon occurred as I walked out of the theater in a daze after experiencing YOGI BEAR. To be fair, YOGI BEAR isn’t the suicide bombing I was expecting…just a simple train wreck.

If you’re under the age of seven (and I would be really weirded out if any of you out there reading this were), then maybe you’ll find some fulfillment from the non-stop slapstick of YOGI BEAR. We get bears who walk and talk like humans, steal picnic baskets, hurt themselves (constantly), dance, water ski and steal more picnic baskets…which, believe me, gets very old, very quickly. Why is any of this funny? Because they’re bears! Get it?? No, I don’t either. And all of this is somehow squeezed into a thin plot involving a documentary filmmaker, Erica (Anna Faris), who comes to Jellystone Park to make a movie about Yogi (Dan Aykroyd) and Boo-Boo (Justin Timberlake). When greedy Mayor Brown decides to shut down the park and sell the land (there always needs to be a villain, right?), Yogi, Boo-Boo, Ranger Smith and Erica must find a way to save the park before it’s too late.

I’ll admit, Boo-Boo is so adorable (and very well-voiced by Timberlake) that when I was staring into his big brown eyes, for a few seconds I would forget that I was in a no-laughs movie that will make any parent dragged to it by their child wish they opted for an abortion. I love kids’ movies. Hell, TANGLED, TOY STORY 3, and HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON are three of my favorite movies of the year. So I know the difference between a good animated movie, and one that exerts no effort into the script. These writers know that they don’t need to be clever in order to sell movie tickets to preschool kids and their parents (at 3-D prices, no less), and they fully take advantage of that fact. The 3-D was pretty great, but that fact just made me all the angrier that this technology would be used to charge innocent people more money for a movie as unworthy as YOGI BEAR.

Rating: D+