Caroline was dying to see “Yogi Bear.” I balked at taking her because it just held no interest for me, but then I realized that when I was the exact same age, my father was game enough to take me to see “Hey There, It’s Yogi Bear!”, which I haven’t seen since I was eight but am willing to guess did not represent the pinnacle of filmic achievement if one is an adult. So I figured, Ah well…it’s karmic payback. And I took her.
Long story short, if you’re eight years old, it’s incredibly engaging. Caroline was literally bouncing in her seat during the action sequences. The animation’s solid (indeed, Yogi and Boo Boo are more animated than most of the flesh and blood actors) and the 3-D effects are occasionally fun. Plus the nice thing about the 3-D glasses is that you can catnap here and there and, as long as you’re not snoring, the kid won’t notice. And, hey: in front of the main feature was a perfectly entertaining original computer generated Road Runner cartoon that featured the Coyote attempting to employ a newly acquired Segway in his endless pursuit of the high-speed bird, which goes about as well as you can imagine. I’m starting to think it may have actually been Caroline’s first real exposure to the Road Runner because she seemed rather bewildered by the core concept. “Why is he trying to catch him?” she asked. I explained, “Because he wants to eat him.” After about thirty seconds, she said, “That’s too much trouble. He should just go eat something else. This is silly.” If she’d been the daughter of a Warners executive fifty years ago, the series would never have gotten off storyboards.
PAD
• 
Recent Comments