Yogi Bear - DVD

Movie: For over 50 years, smart Yogi Bear, along with his trusty sidekick Boo Boo, has been trying to steal visitors' Pickenick baskets at Jellystone Park, giving Ranger Smith a hard time. After several TV series, specials and animated feature films, the legendary Hanna-Barbera cartoon made it to our cinemas in 2010 as a mix of live-action film and computer animation!

The story here follows the classic pattern of the early Yogi Adventures: while Yogi Br keeps coming up with new tricks to get his hands on the tasty Pickenick baskets from visitors to Jellystone Park, Ranger Smith (Tom Cavanagh) has to deal with a whole new set of troubles: Backstabbing Mayor Brown (Andrew Daly) wants to sell the land on which the park is located to make up his small town's financial deficit - and secure election as governor. With the help of documentary filmmaker Rachel (Anna Faris), Smith puts together a big celebration to save the park from closure. But when Yogi Bear and Boo Boo also try to help, the day ends in disaster and Brown seems to have won. But when Yogi Bear realizes that an end to the park also means an end to delicious Pickenick baskets, he takes up the fight against the corrupt politician and his aides...

Yogi Bear presents itself in exactly the tradition that has seen the animation-real film mixes of Garfield and Alvin & the Chipmunks successfully conquer theaters. Loveable, animated main characters who cause a hell of a lot of chaos in their real-life surroundings - all, of course, with plenty of kid-friendly humor that viewers over the age of 14 won't have much fun with. Yogi Bear is not a particularly good film, but at least it's a fairly harmless-nice children's film that presents its ecological message wrapped up in a more or less amusing adventure.

Some positive things should definitely be said about the film, though: both Yogi Bear and Boo Boo are very well animated and capture the spirit of the old cartoon series well. Also convincing are some of the gags surrounding the completely over-the-top sleazy mayor and his minions. The running gag with the car window or his election commercial should get a few small laughs even from older viewers.

Otherwise, the nicely filmed action remains rather flat, but is not annoyingly bad. Especially in comparison to the similarly styled film adaptations of Garfield or Alvin & the Chipmunks, Yogi Bear is even relatively well done. Not a masterpiece, nowhere near as charming as the old cartoons, but well worth watching as harmless family entertainment for smaller viewers!

Picture + Sound: From the technical aspect, the DVD leaves a very good impression. The picture is clean and very sharp at most moments. Whether it's Yogi's hair or the scenery of Jellystone Park, both the small details and the close-ups are worth watching. On top of that, there's a vibrant color scheme that does justice to the characters' cartoon origins in a way that's worth watching. The audio is dominated by the dialogue and music, but here and there some good surround effects and ambient noise add some dynamics to the tonal proceedings. However, this works better on the English soundtrack, where the dialogue is a bit more harmoniously integrated into the proceedings. Overall, however, there is a more than deserved: good!

Extras: Who is looking for good extras, will hardly find it on the DVD and must take the Blu-Ray (2D or 3D) willy-nilly. Because the DVD has to offer only two instructive tips from the Jellystone Park (each just under 2 minutes) and a short collage that introduces Yogi Bear (just under 3 minutes). Weak!

Conclusion: Yogi Bear is quite entertaining fun that younger viewers in particular should thoroughly enjoy. The DVD conversion of the hit movie is technically on a high level, but has little to offer extras worth mentioning. Nevertheless: for friends of the somewhat simpler American family entertainment, for all Pickenick lovers and bear fans this fun is quite recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp