After they see the 3-D film of “Yogi Bear,” your cubs will never believe Yogi used to be cool — the Kung Fu Panda of the 1960s. It’ll be like trying to teach them “Mabel” was once a hot name, or that there was once so little on TV that people had to sit around reading books.
“Yogi Bear” is a partially animated version (the “partially” seems to derive from budget considerations, as does everything else about the film) of the 1960s toon about a thieving but good-natured talking bear and his doubting young squire Boo Boo. (Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake do the voices in the style of the original.)
The manic Yogi schemes to fill his belly by using crazy inventions to rob picnickers, as the depressive Boo Boo expresses doubts (are they really two halves of the same conflicted being? This could have been “Black Swan” for preschoolers).
Instead of being a true adversary, the exasperated head ranger (Tom Cavanagh) of the park is instead a sort of weary baby sitter to the wayward bear. No one, not even a documentary filmmaker (Anna Faris) or the dastardly mayor, who proposes to sell Jellystone to loggers, seems to find it remarkable that chatty bears roam the park, lashing together booby-trapped picnic tables and manufacturing flying machines from spare parts.
The animated bears aren’t even onscreen half the time (which is about 70 minutes before the credits roll), not that I much missed them. I was a little scared by their vacant serial-killer eyeballs, the Charles Manson stares that suggest that after they devour everything in your pic-a-nic basket they’ll probably offer a brief thank-you prayer to Satan.
Cavanagh, the always-engaging former star of “Ed” (with whom I am friendly), and the adorable Faris (whom I don’t know — but feel free to look me up, Anna!) make the non-animated scenes amusing, as the ranger and the documentarian fall in love and fight to save the park. But the script doesn’t give them a lot to do. Their main purpose is to react to Yogi’s clanky one-liners. “Urinate on her to mark her as your territory,” he advises.
Needing to raise $30,000, the ranger plans a fireworks night (Yogi ruins it with a water-skiing stunt that sends rockets shooting toward the crowd), then tries to save an endangered turtle (which Yogi has been using as a footstool) that the pro-logging crowd wants to make disappear, lest the park be designated a protected zone. It’s already pretty well-insulated from creative ideas.
“Yogi Bear” lacks even the zinging toddler anarchy of the “Alvin and the Chipmunks” movies. It’s more like the dim “Underdog” movie a couple of years ago. Huckleberry Hound, don’t sell yourself cheap.