Yogi Bear: Critic Reviews

There's nothing particularly inventive in the plot or grade-school humor, but the movie skates by on the timeless, undemanding charm of watching a tie-wearing bear try to steal people's lunches.

A bland 21st-century family comedy without a single moment that captures the wit, energy or sophistication of the original, which by now dates back more than 50 years.

Poor old Yogi has a rough time of it in this miserable 3D assault of humour-free live action and lumpy animation.

Yogi Bear is a big boo-boo.

Fart jokes? Check. 3-D spit takes? Check. Yogi shaking his ursine rump to "Baby Got Back"? Dear Lord, check.

Picture Timberlake in the booth recording his lines and you have the best joke in the movie. Everything else is actively painful, a frenetic, unfunny mix of action, romance, dud dialogue, and icky things popping out of the screen.

Rock-bottom expectations are rewarded, sort of, in this update of Hanna-Barbera's necktied ursus.

The relative lack of coarseness and snark may come as a surprising relief, even to 21st-century audiences.

The problem here is Hollywood, as ever, committing a series of safe nostalgia-fueled films that represent less risk than, say, actually making something new.

"Yogi Bear" gives cheap hackwork a bad name.

Neither smarter nor dumber than the average family-friendly comedy.

"Yogi Bear" lacks even the zinging toddler anarchy of the "Alvin and the Chipmunks" movies.

Weak as they've been, the "Alvin and the Chipmunks" movies are operating on a higher plane than this.

Taking the kids to a matinee of Yogi Bear in 3-D is no picnic.

A live-action/cartoon mix that's misguided in just about every way.

This being the highly advanced 21st century, simple animation won't do, so we must suffer through mediocre, lifeless computer-generated animation of this treasured twosome.

full review at Movies for the Masses

Millions of adults grew up watching Yogi Bear cartoons, but instead of playing to those memories, it does as little as possible to technically qualify as a "Yogi Bear movie."

I couldn't help wishing the evil government types would get their act together, demolish the park and rid the world of any habitat that could spawn such an awful bastard.

Youngsters might enjoy the movie's colorful locales, lovable if doltish bears, and intermittent slapstick comedy.

Yogi Bear barely raises a grin, it's only Miller and Daly's charisma and ad-lib that goes some way to saving it.

Small children with low levels of expectation are the target for this blandly unimaginative mix of live-action and 3D animation.

Even the most nostalgic and forgiving Yogi fan will likely find it hard to warm to the 21st-century, computer-generated, 3D make-over he's undergone here.

Any potential retro-charm is quickly rubbed out by creepy CGI, a tired reality-TV conceit and failure to grasp that Yogi's appeal lies in his delivery and quick wit, not eye-stabbing 3D gimmicks or life-like depictions of picnic-basket heists.