Ed's Review Dot Com

Warner Bros. Pictures, Sunswept Entertainment, De Line Pictures

Dan Akroyd, Justin Timberlake, Anna Faris, Tom Cavanaugh, T.J. Miller, Nathan Corddry, Andrew Daly, Josh Robert Thompson

Good old Jellystone Park is celebrating it’s 100th Anniversary, but things are not looking good. Attendance is down, and the park cannot cover it’s budget. Plus Mayor Brown (Andrew Daly) is planning a run for Governor, and needs to make money fast, and the logging companies have had their eyes on Jellystone for quite a while. Rachel (Anna Faris) is a budding filmmaker who wants to shoot a documentary about Yogi (Akroyd) and Boo-Boo (Timberlake), and we know Yogi is “smarter than the average bear”! As one last gasp, Rangers Smith (Tom Cavanagh) and Jones (T.J.Miller) make a last ditch effort to save the park by having a 100th anniversary extravaganza complete with water show and fireworks. We know that’s not going to turn out well with a little “help” from Yogi.

Ah, man, what a way to relive my childhood with Yogi and Boo-Boo. This is a fantastic nostalgia piece for those of us lucky enough to have been raised on Yogi, Boo-Boo, Quick Draw McGraw, Huckleberry Hound, Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy and the rest of the Hanna Barbera gang. This is a fanciful story with CGI Bears and Turtles and live action that looks and feels like a cartoon! What an excellent job of casting for Ranger Smith, Ranger Jones, and especially Mayor Brown and his “Yes Man” (Nathan Corddry). These folks are all great fun. It’s wonderful to see Anna Faris, a fine little comedienne, in something completely non-raunchy for a change. I loved this movie! I got to watch this all by myself in the front section of the theater with a free popcorn and a diet coke with my 3D glasses on! At the same time, I got to complete my AMC “Celebrate the Season with Us” promotion and got my $10.00 gift card from AMC. What a fine day! Imagine the glee when the first thing that pops up after the 27 previews and the “Turn off your cell phone, stupid” message, was a Road Runner/Wile E Coyote cartoon! Yep, a cartoon with a Segway theme where we’re not sure who the real villain is, the roadrunner, the train, truck, bus, car, that runs over him, or gravity itself! Or could it be the Segways were really out to get this poor guy? Wile E Coyote’s Segway stops on the tracks and he can’t get it going and he hears a train whistle, so he simply leaves it on the track and takes a step back to let the train pass. Atta-boy Wile E! I don’t have to tell you what happens next!

This was an excellent effort to bring Yogi into the 21st Century. Of course, most people won’t know Yogi from Adam, and it’ll probably lose money at the box office. View any movie reviews site to find the haters of this film, they’re everywhere. But please allow me to say, I enjoyed it immensely and thanks again for the cartoon up front. It’s easy to feel nostalgic for the old days, and somehow think the technology that was used in 1961 was better than today’s technology, but it wasn’t. TV Animations folks at H-B made cartoons that way because they had to. If they had the money and technology to make Yogi look like this back then, they certainly would have. Audiophiles find newer noise canceled recording of old songs. Not everyone listens to 78 RPM records on non electric wind up record players. The historical stuff is important to remember, but if it was better, P. Diddy would be dropping his latest found artist’s record on vinyl 78’s. But OK. I agree not to overdo it. I’m not quite ready for CGI Snagglepuss yet.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Note: For film buffs, a little bit of movie Trivia. Novelty Record King Sheb Wooley (and his alter ego country singer Ben Colder), best noted for “Flying Purple People Eater” used to be famous for dying in films among his other talents. Mostly he just did the sound effects. Legend has it that he recorded a scream for the 1951 Warner Bros. film Distant Drums for when a man got pulled under by an alligator in the everglades. This bit of audio was stored in the vault and was pulled out for one of the Star Wars films and became known as the “Wilhelm Scream”. Since then it has been used in over 150 films. It is an inside joke by sound men to include a Wilhelm Scream in your soundtrack. Yogi Bear has a Wilhelm Scream in it when a pine cone falls from a tree and hits Yogi in the eye. For more on the Wilhelm Scream just google it!