'Winnie the Pooh' is Nostalgic, Delightful Fun

I managed to miss out on last weekend's Harry Potter juggernaut in favor of a nostalgic trip to the Hundred Acre Wood. I had my 4-year old granddaughter in tow to justify Christopher Robin's bedroom over Hogwarts, but I would've gladly seen Winnie the Pooh without her (sorry Donna). She was more excited about seeing The Smurfs in two weeks anyway. I really need to keep working on her. She can't possibly be related to me.

Winnie the Pooh is a charming, lovingly crafted film rendered in the classic 2D style. It has the lush, deceptively simple watercolor backgrounds that evoke both the late 1960s Disney cartoons and E. H. Shepard's illustrations in the original A. A. Milne stories. The story is of little consequence. Like so many other Pooh stories, it's a day in the life of the honey-loving bear and his friends. The morose donkey Eeyore loses his tail. Christopher Robin is mistakenly thought lost and captured by a fierce imaginary creature called a Backson--that steals your socks and makes your clocks run slow. There are no explosions, elaborate special effects or fart jokes in Winnie the Pooh. The most violent thing that happens is bouncy Tigger pounces on a red balloon.

All these benign goings-on may lead you to believe Winnie the Pooh is just a movie for kids. If you buy into that, then you are indeed a bear of very little brain. Safe for children? Absolutely. But to dismiss Winnie the Pooh as mere kiddie fare is to not fully appreciate the artistry and fun of the film. The voice cast is excellent, especially Late Late Show host Craig Ferguson as the pompous Owl and the versatile Jim Cummings who does double duty as the voice of both Tigger and Pooh. It's also a pleasure to hear Monty Python alum John Cleese narrate the film, much in the same manner as Sebastian Cabot did in the originals. That familiarity should resonate with adults, who will also appreciate the opening live action shots in Christopher Robin's bedroom and the way the animated characters literally pop right out of the storybook--and occasionally get tangled up in the letters.

In a summertime full of the usual loud, effects-heavy "event" films, Winnie the Pooh is a nostalgic and delightful time at the movies.

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Christopher Robin Gets Botox: A First Look at 'Winnie the Pooh'

This week, Disney released a new trailer and stills for next year's Winnie the Pooh film coming out on July 15. Fans of the original shorts Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree and Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day are going to love the look of the new Pooh movie, which recreates the simple hand-drawn animation and lush watercolor backgrounds that helped make the originals so appealing. The movie will also get back to its roots, adapting story lines directly from A. A. Milne's series of children's tales.

The only thing noticeably different about the look of Winnie the Pooh is Christopher Robin, who's gone from the solid dark eyes of the earlier films . . . 

. . . to a more doe-eyed appearance:

It looks like Chris discovered Botox, but actually it's the Disney animators enabling him to be more expressive. Pupils are everything. It's a minor change that should work just fine. 

Another nice element to the new Pooh film is the casting of Monty Python alum John Cleese as the narrator. Cleese's style and delivery (and yes, the English accent) will be the perfect nostalgia trip for those of us who grew up on the dulcet tones of the first Pooh storyteller, Sebastian Cabot.

Also, this will be the first time since 1977's The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (itself an edited compilation of the first Pooh shorts) that a Pooh feature film has come under Disney's premiere film label. More recent releases like The Tigger Movie (2000) and Piglet's Big Movie (2003) were produced by DisneyToon Studios, Disney's on-the-cheap creator of (mostly) direct-to-video releases. While these movies were generally entertaining, they lacked the richness in story and appearance that the earlier films had. Credit Winnie the Pooh executive producer John Lasseter (who knows a thing or two about reviving classic Disney properties) and story supervisor Burny Mattinson (who animated the original Pooh films) for giving the denizens of the Hundred Acre Wood the attention they deserve. After 34 years, it'll be great to have them back.

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