Martin Lawrence provides the voice to Boog, the bear, who meets up with Ashton Kutcher's deer named Elliot. Boog has trouble holding his sugar, and when the two break into a convenience store for all the sugar they can consume, Boog is brought “home” to his female caretaker, Beth (voiced by Debra Messing), in the back of the sheriff's caged vehicle as if he were drunk.

Elliot returns to visit Boog during a stage show, however, the curtain is backlit and the audience sees what it believes is Boog tearing Elliot to shreds in a vicious attack, which isn't the case. After this mistaken incident, Boog is labeled dangerous; he is drugged and flown to the top ridge where Beth believes he will be safe. After all, she does this to him three days before “open season” starts.

What ensues is a very comical plot in which a bear who's only known the comforts of a garage, a giant doggie bed, his stuffed bear (that has a pull string that plays “Teddy bear picnic”) and a commode, has to try and navigate his way through the forest for the first time. After what seems to be a few hours, Boog finally gives in and agrees to take along Elliot, who claims to know the way back to the city, and back to Beth. The truth is, Elliot wouldn't know his way out of a paper bag, which makes the movie quite funny.

Boog is made fun of by the other animals in the forest at every turn. He takes on the tree squirrels, lead by McSquizzy (Billy Connolly), and loses horribly. He is laughed at as the dancing bear by the dam building beavers. And he loses two very comical battles with a porcupine and a pair of skunks. He is also left having to deal with a new problem: when you're used to a commode, where do you go in the woods?

Although the animals are mostly hiding on high ground, a misstep by Boog and Elliot end up destroying a dam, and flooding all the animals back down to the hunting ground with not enough time to climb back up to safety. Boog ends up rallying the forest to come together, and they gather as much material as they can to fight back against the throngs of hunters coming their way. What takes place are some of the most creative and entertaining scenes of the entire movie.

To be honest, I think the adults were laughing harder than the children they had taken! This movie is a definite thumbs up and very family friendly. It's well worth the ticket price. In a day and age of raunchy comedy, it's nice to see a script with lots of clean humor that everyone can enjoy.

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Settling down and waiting to laugh to tears, I found myself after a short period of time regretting I hadn't chosen to see “Departed” instead. I wasn't laughing like I normally do at his routines. He wasn't that funny, and I thought to myself, “they must have picked the only two or three jokes out of the movie and put them in the trailer!” Having paid the money, I settled in for a long, slow ride.

Robin Williams plays a character by the name of “Tom Dobbs”, a television personality who does comedy news in the vein of Jon Stewart. Before each taping of his show, he goes out and warms up the audience. It is during one such warm up that an audience member asks a question: “why don't YOU run for president?” So he does.

I really enjoy Christopher Walken because he always picks great characters to portray that stretch and invariably adds to his acting repertoire. In this script, he plays the manager of “Tom Dobbs” (Williams), and shifts between a manager and a presidential hopeful's coach. About halfway through the movie, his character is sent to the hospital and remains wheelchair bound for the remainder of the plot. There seemed to be no reason to write that plot line in because it added nothing to the overall script. With this strange plot line, Walken's performance sadly deteriorates from entertaining to not credible.

“Tom Dobbs” (Williams) wants desperately to be considered a viable candidate, so he holds back on his comedy routines through a good portion of the script. This strategy earns him a spot in the main televised debate with the Democratic and Republican challengers. During the debate, “Tom Dobbs” lets loose his style of humorous political commentary that got him tapped to run by a member of his television audience. It is also the funniest scene in the entire movie, which is used for the trailer.

The movie has twists and turns, and does take up an interesting issue that no one in reality wants to address: the Diebold voting machines that have been proven to be easily hacked. In the case of the movie, the company with the bad software is called “Delacroy”. The owners of Delacroy (who are making a fortune) go on the defensive when a software designer discovers a glitch in the program that makes “Tom Dobbs” the president-elect. All scandals need a fall guy, and the female programmer predictably demonized and made out to be a drug addict. This part of the plot was unfortunately done over the top and wasn't credible. If they had toned it down a little bit, then it would've played better.

In the end, the programmer tells “Tom Dobbs” he's not the president and he has to figure out inside his own soul what he should do. Even his own team members try to discredit the programmer based on the information they have been fed to him.

In the end, he comes out and tells the world the software glitch has made him president on a performance of “Saturday Night Live”. The movie closes with various magazine covers showing “Tom Dobbs” to be the “Man of the Year” for having stepped down.

My advice? Save your money and wait until this comes out on your cable channels. Other than a few passing lines here and there, it isn't worth the ticket price.

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The production value was superb, and the costumes and sets were an incredible feast to the eyes. The computer graphics added were not over the top and did not distract in any way from the movie; they were appropriately subdued. For a change, not one character, in my opinion, turned in a bad acting performance, and there were several big names signed onto this movie: Tiny Lister, John Rhys-Davies, and Peter O'Toole. Grading the movie on these aspects, I would have to give it a solid “A-”.

In terms of how well the plot followed the biblical story of Queen Esther, I would have to have to give it a “C-“. As a Christian, I knew the story of Queen Esther with its overwhelming theme of, “God rises everyone up for one moment in their lives – be prepared to accept your challenge when God calls you.” I found myself watching the screen during scenes and thinking, “this isn't in the Bible”.

For instance, there is a scene in which a trusted old general is ambushed in a plot and then “conveniently saved” by Haman, the book's villain. Then there's an early scene in the movie when all the young virgins are taken at night and by force to the palace; the Bible doesn't make mention it was done by force or that any young virgin objected. There's also the necklace Esther wears and presents as a gift to the King, and a lot is consistently made of it throughout the movie. The very first scene that made me question the accuracy the film was after the virgins had been taken to the palace; the young men of the village were taken and made into eunuchs. Of course there is plotting between Prince Memucan and Haman that isn't part of the story line, either, along with internal political palace conflits.

There is a possibility any of these things could have taken place, however, they're not in the record. I guess I'm a purist when it comes to Christian films because there's always the chance someone who's buying a ticket may find their lives being impacted as the Holy Spirit works on them. There's always a desire for churches to entertain and sex up the Word of God, but it's sexy on its own if you just read it. There's murder, sex, greed, rape, human sacrifices, slavery, extortion, war, heroism, and love inside its pages and reads like any modern day blockbuster book. Why would you want to alter that?

When Queen Vashti was portrayed as an anti-war person in what should be chapter one of the book, I knew I better be on my guard. I don't like seeing modern day politics injected into biblical plotlines. In all the commentaries I've seen and read, Vashti refused to go to the King because he wanted her to appear naked in front of a drunken court, wearing only her crown, to display her radiant beauty. She refused as an honorable woman would have, and was permanently removed from the King for being disobedient.

If you go hoping for accuracy to be important, throw that hope out the window. There is little that bears resemblance to the Book of Esther, but it remains a solidly entertaining film with convincing acting roles turned in by all players. This should become a mainstream success even for non-Christians who just fancy a good old-fashioned love story from pauper to royalty. It is also a family friendly movie with mild hints of seductive love and almost no violence. Take your little princess and watch her dream.

My advice? Buy a cheaper afternoon ticket and save your money for one of the other big movies at the more expensive evening rates.

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