Family Flix: Open Season (New DVD Release)

You can take the bear out of the woods, but you can’t take the woods out of the bear.

The bear in question is Boog (Martin Lawrence), and he is the star of Open Season. Boog is a “Wheel of Fortune”-watching, toiled trained and apparently African-American grizzly bear who forgot where he came from. He was raised in (the suburbs) a garage by tree-hugging Park Ranger Beth (Debra Messing). It’s all good.

All good, that is, until he meets Elliot (Ashton Kutcher). Elliot is a deer who lives in the (hood) wild. He has been captured by the mouth-breathing hunter, Shaw (Gary Sinise) and is about to be stuffed when Boog rescues him.

Of course, no good deed goes unpunished. Soon Elliot shows up at the garage, throwing rabbits at Boog’s window. Elliot proceeds to poke fun at the fact that Boog is (bourgeois) domesticated and entices him away with (drugs) Woo-Hoo bars. The two tear up a convenience store. Boog can’t hold his (liquor) Slurpee and becomes belligerent. Park Ranger Beth makes the decision she’s been regretting--she must send him away to live in the (ghetto) woods. Oh, during hunting season, ergo the title.

As you might have guessed, Boog has trouble adapting to his new lifestyle. “I can’t even go in the woods!” he laments. He resolves to return to the garage and must endure a gaggle of hunters (including Shaw, who is still stalking them). He forces Elliot to lead the way and the two get lost Blair Witch, style.

Maybe they should have sent him to job corps first. (OK. I’ll stop).

Please excuse my snarkiness. The truth is that I really liked this movie. Boog is adorable (despite the fact that he actually resembles Martin Lawrence). There’s just something about an 8-foot grizzly bear wearing a tiny little teddy bear backpack!

I’ve never found Ashton Kutcher to be as distasteful as some people have. Even so, he should really abandon his career as a half-baked stoner and embrace his inner cartoon character. His performance as the hysteria-prone Elliot is simply priceless.

Billy Connolly appears and validates my theory that you can fall in love with anything as long as it has a Scottish brogue. He plays McSquizzy, an angry, defensive squirrel leading an army of angry, defensive squirrels (think Braveheart). He has the absolute best line in the movie: “He has a wee freakish twin growing out of his back!” The backpack again.

Still, it would have been nice if they didn’t beat me over the head with the environmental theme. People shouldn’t hunt animals. Yes, I get it. And in case I didn’t get it, AEYOB reminded me several times during the movie. Will Open Season create a generation of animal rights activists the way 101 Dalmatians did? Probably not. That’s just my guess.

AEYOB heartily recommends Open Season. But he told me that before we even watched it.

AEYOB-tested DVD extras:

Wheel of Fortune: Forest Edition game

Boog and Elliot’s Midnight Bun Run (animated short film)

Open Season is now available on DVD.

Rated PG

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Wendy R., Movie Correspondent:

Wendy R. is a mother of two and a film buff. All of her films are road-tested by an actual eight-year-old boy (AEYOB).

You can find all of Wendy’s Family Flix columns at http://gather.com/familyflix.

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