Yogi Bear
Rating: 3/10
Cast: Yogi, Boo Boo, Ranger Smith, Ranger Jones, Pic-a-nic baskets - Dan Aykroyd, Tom Cavanagh, Justin Timberlake, Anna Faris
Director: Eric Brevig
It's nature vs corporate greed in this latest film for Yogi Bear, partially shot here in good ole NZ.
Dan Aykroyd, a lifelong Yogi fan, voices the brown bear who's notorious in his home Jellystone Park - mainly for attempting to steal picnic baskets (along with compatriot Boo Boo).
Yogi's nemesis is Ranger Smith (Scrubs' Tom Cavanagh) - but both of them face a fresh threat when the local mayor decides to shut down Jellystone Park and sell it off in an attempt to get the region out of debt and stave off his being thrown out of office.
When a visiting doco maker (Anna Faris) turns up, it seems there's some hope for the park in its 100th year.
But it looks as if Yogi and Smith have underestimated the power of the corporate big boys.
Looking at this through a rosy tinted pair of nostalgia glasses may prove fatal for fans of the original Hanna Barbera series.
First up - both Aykroyd and Timberlake (particularly) do excellent vocal versions of their respective characters but they can't save this terribly unoriginal, lazily 3D converted travesty.
With a script that reeks of corny jokes (which only the really young of the audience will enjoy), there's little here that sings from this mercifully short film. The message of love nature is pummeled through at every available opportunity - and fair enough.
But the joy of the original shorts and the antics of the bear are unimpressive and out of place in the 21st century - with really only the very young sector of the audience likely to get plenty of mirth from what transpires on the screen. Parents who remember the original may walk out feeling that they've had a childhood memory destroyed in a bitter disappointment.
Faris and Cavanagh make a good couple and do as best they can - but with a script that appears to have been found where a bear does its business in the woods, that's cold comfort.
