With a spot-on (and well-CGi’d) Yogi straight out the cartoons and decent nature (and pic-a-nic) comedy hijinx set amongst great Jellystone locational setting, this Yogi flick delivers what you could (reasonably) expect from its premise. 4.2/10.
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Yogi Bear (Dan Aykroyd) and his sidekick, Boo Boo (Justin Timberlake), are Jellystone Park’s most-notorious troublemakers, hatching countless schemes to separate park visitors from their vittles. Standing in the way of picnic perfection is their long-suffering nemesis, Ranger Smith (Tom Cavanagh). But when Mayor Brown announces his plans to sell Jellystone Park to loggers, Yogi, Boo Boo and Ranger Smith must join forces to save their beloved campground from closing forever.
*Possible spoilers ahead*
Review: With a spot-on (and well-CGi’d) Yogi straight out the cartoons, and decent nature (and pic-a-nic) comedy hijinx set amongst great Jellystone locational setting, this Yogi delivers what you could reasonably expect from its premise. Although the screenplay is admittedly pretty subpar and plotting average with some juvenile humor, no one goes into a Hanna-Barbera cartoon adaptation (or most kids’ movies for that matter) expecting to be blown away cinematically. What we have here then is fun kids’ diversion that gets the tone and overall-feel of the iconic bear and his classic cartoons spot-on and about what you’d expect coming in. The cast is star-studded from Dan Aykroyd’s perfected voice rendition of Yogi to Justin Timberlake’s surprisingly good Boo Boo, plus a weathered live-action ensemble from Tom Cavanaugh to TJ Miller to Any Daly to Anna Faris. The pic-a-nic-centered comedy is fine, plot adequate in its city-vs-nature topic and yogi development, locational setting and Yosemite nature shots beautiful, and CGI impressive with good textures making these fake characters look nearly-real amongst its live-action hijinx. If you take this movie for what it is and not pretentiously expect it to blow your socks off, it is a fun way to pass an hour with kids, and perhaps enjoy a little nostalgia kick reminiscent of its classic 80’s talking-bear cartoon.
Official CLC Score: 4.2/10
