Blu-ray review

[yrsoft2f]

Doesn't it make you wonder for whom studios make films? I mean, they must, I'm sure, do considerable market research on a title before producing it. Warner Bros.' 2010 live-action/CG-animated release "Yogi Bear," for example, did fair business at the box office but gets no plaudits from this reviewer for originality, invention, humor, adventure, or common sense. Yet, I ask, who was the audience? The filmmakers must have figured some viewers would be adults nostalgic for the old TV show, but the new movie is so absurdly juvenile it hardly seems aimed at grown-ups, nostalgic or no. And the Blu-ary Ripper show ended over two decades ago, meaning most kids would probably not even recognize the main character. My point is that there is no reason a good show for children shouldn't appeal to older viewers as well; Disney and Pixar have been proving this for years. If there were more wit, wisdom, or whimsy to "Yogi Bear," maybe it would have turned a greater profit instead of barely making more than its production costs.
But what do I know. If it seems as though I'm rambling, it's because I'm trying to avoid thinking back on the movie. Once was enough. Still, younger children might find it worthwhile if they're easily amused. The thing bored this adult to tears.
The setting, as always, is Jellystone Park, where Yogi Bear (voiced by Dan Aykroyd) and his diminutive pal Boo Boo (voiced by Justin Timberlake) make their home, foraging in the wild, as always, for picnic baskets of goodies. They and a turtle are the only Blu-ary Copy characters in the film, the rest of the cast made up of real people. The filmmakers, led by director Eric Brevig ("Journey to the Center of the Earth"), shot the movie in Auckland, New Zealand; I suppose all the forests in the U.S. were closed at the time.
I found Yogi and Boo Boo somewhat creepy in their CGI guise. They don't actually look like real bears but like the cartoon bears of the old Blu-ary Ripper show, which is fine; yet they're not quite cartoon bears, either, which tends to diminish one's belief in them as cartoon bears or real bears. They're just...odd. They are, however, soft and fuzzy-looking, cuddly in a proper teddy-bear fashion. They reminded me that Yogi (TV incarnation or CGI movie) is probably responsible for the maiming and killing of more idiot tourists each year than any character in history. "Look, Martha, a bear! Go feed it a scrap, and I'll get your picture with him." Don't think it hasn't happened more than once.
Fortunately, both Aykroyd and Timberlake do a good job with their voice characterizations, meaning they sound like the television characters we remember, and they inject a good deal of spirit into their roles. (Hanna and Barbera patterned the character of Yogi on Art Carney's part as Ed Norton in the old "Honeymooners" show,Rip DVDs to mobile players or MacBook, complete with Norton's hat,Rip DVD movies freely, and copy DVD simultaneously, tie, and voice inflections.) Unfortunately, the script gives the actors little to say or do that's in the least bit humorous. In fact, the screenplay makes both characters into dunces, always screwing up the situation as though they had no minds or intelligence of any kind. When they were cartoon figures, that worked. But now that they're CGI creations intermingling with real human beings, they seem more frustrating than amusing.