Running Time: 1 hour, 9 minutes (but some of that, surely, includes the cartoon short “The Ballad of Nessie”)
Rating: G
Director: Steven J. Anderson, Don Hall
Quick Impressions:
I didn’t know what to expect from Winnie the Pooh. The original 1960s short features have such timeless charm that I didn’t know if a follow-up could possibly approach their quality. For the first few minutes of the feature, I felt slightly unsettled. A lot of the voices were different. I knew that Craig Ferguson was now voicing Owl, and for some reason that knowledge was distracting. The “Winnie the Pooh” song sounded weird when Zooey Deschanel sang it.
And Kanga sounded nothing at all like any of her previous vocal incarnations! I later forgave Kristen Anderson-Lopez for sounding like herself when I learned that she co-wrote the delightful new songs with her husband Robert Lopez (of Avenue Q and The Book of Mormon fame).
My mother and I spent several minutes trying to place the narrator who turned out to be John Cleese, but the new voice of Rabbit even distracted my husband. (At home, I discovered that he’s voiced in this movie by Tom Kenny, aka Spongebob Squarepants. Kenny does fine vocal work as Rabbit. He just sounds almost nothing like the old Rabbit.)
After I recovered from my initial disorientation, however, I found that the movie grew on me infectiously. By the time everybody fell into the Backson trap, it had completely won my heart, and now I’m eager to watch the beginning again and give it another chance.
“The Ballad of Nessie”:
The movie began with a cartoon short about the plight of a female Loch Ness Monster displaced by a Scottish tycoon determined to build a mini-golf course. In style, it reminded me a bit of the classic Disney cartoon shorts sung by the Andrews Sisters—“Little Toot” or “Johnny Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet.” As we left the theater, my husband commented on how much he’d liked the beautiful music and eye-pleasing art style. (At home, I learned that the music was by Michael Giacchino, who also wrote the beautiful, Oscar-winning score for Up a couple of years ago.)
At first I was a bit skeptical of the short, and my mother (sitting beside me) whispered, “This is a very strange cartoon.” But then my two-year-old sighed woefully, “Oh, poor Nessie,” and when the conflict was resolved, she laughed out loud and babbled at length about how happy the duck was now. So Mom and I decided that we liked the cartoon, after all. And it had such a lovely moral at the end that I began to feel sure it was an adaptation of a children’s book. But in fact, it was written for the screen.
For some reason, a Walt Disney Animation logo (the short clip from “Steamboat Willie”) appeared both before the short and again before the feature, causing my daughter to exclaim in confusion, “Another Mickey Mouse again? When is Pooh coming?”
The Good and The Very Good:
Because I had the privilege of watching the movie with a member of what must be its target audience, I can say with confidence that the highlight was enjoying the reactions of my two-year-old daughter.
In the very beginning of the movie, the narrator announces that Winnie the Pooh got up, but on screen, Pooh remains in bed asleep. A long and humorous battle of wills between Pooh and the narrator ensues, but even before that started, my daughter noticed the incongruity and shrieked in delight, “Get up, Pooh! Why don’t you get up?”
She found Tigger’s antics terribly amusing (except when she mistook him for the monstrous Backson; then she cringed in terror and yelped, “Run, Piglet!”) Pooh’s noisy and recurrent hunger pangs filled her with sympathy for his plight. She laughed out loud at many of the jokes. And at the end she burst into applause, clapping all through the first stage of the credits. (My mother started to clap in time with the music, and my daughter, on her feet and applauding enthusiastically, turned over her shoulder and instructed her grandmother, “Clap faster!”)
Essentially, the movie tells two interlocking stories. First, learning that Eeyore (unobtrusively voiced by Bud Luckey) has lost his tail, the residents of the Hundred Acre Wood arrange a contest to find a fitting replacement. After that, Owl interprets a note from Christopher Robin (in which he promises to be “back soon”) as an indication that he’s been kidnapped by the nefarious monster, The Backson. Everyone sets out to trap the Backson, and though their scheme backfires, all is well in the end when Christopher Robin reappears and Pooh eventually finds Eeyore’s missing tail. (A secondary conflict unfolds throughout all of these adventures. Pooh begins the day desperately hungry for some honey and is ultimately denied gratification until the very end of the movie.)
At the end of the movie, as I said, my daughter clapped, and I shared her enthusiasm. The movie completely won me over, and I even warmed to Zooey Deschanel’s singing. I loved the song she wrote and performed during the closing credits.
Best Song:
The song about the Backson was definitely the moment when the movie really started clicking for me. The song itself is clever and catchy, and the accompanying, stylized animation was arresting, even captivating. I’ll have to see the movie again to give the beginning another try, but I truly began to enjoy the movie during the delightful Backson musical number, and everything afterward seemed increasingly funny, well-paced, and delightful.
Best Scene:
During the part where all the characters were trapped in the pit, I laughed out loud several times, astonished that I was laughing out loud at Winnie the Pooh. If the entire movie had been one long pit scene, I think I would have laughed until I died. Who knew it would be so entertaining to watch a bunch of addle-brained, tender-hearted, animated stuffed animals sit around chatting in a hole in the ground?
Best Joke:
I laughed the hardest when Pooh told Rabbit, “Don’t worry, Piglet’s very clever,” and proceeded to be perfectly satisfied with Piglet’s “clever” act. I’m not sure why I found such a random moment so hilarious, but this exchange happened during the delightful pit scene when the jokes were as plentiful as the honey in Pooh’s vivid daydreams. Pooh’s not-so-brilliant scheme for using Piglet to get the beehive out of the tree also cracked me up as did the running references to the cold Eeyore worried he was coming down with.
Best Surprise:
Winnie the Pooh did not really strike me as a movie that would have a tag after the closing credits, but it did. Those who stay are treated to an appearance from the previously-thought-mythical Backson himself.
Best Scene Visually:
Pooh’s delusional daydream about honey, largely expressed in a charming song, is deliciously easy on the eyes.
Overall:
For toddlers, you won’t find a better movie in theaters than Winnie the Pooh. My daughter loved it, and I was surprised by how funny I found the humor. Some people may feel cheated by such a short runtime (though my father still managed to fall asleep in the middle), but parents of young, active children will likely consider it a godsend. The first few minutes do seem a little weird and disorienting to classic Pooh enthusiasts, but the movie ultimately delivers what it promises, a honey sweet, hand-drawn tale of the innocence and wonder of childhood. And if you’re wondering if it’s okay to bring along older siblings, my eight-year-old stepson, whose favorite movie is Transformers, thoroughly enjoyed Winnie the Pooh and laughed out loud many times.
(Pooh also featuring the vocal talents of Travis Oates as Piglet, Wyatt Dean Hall as Roo, Jack Boulter as Christopher Robin, Huell Howser as Backson, and Jim Cummings who has long been the voice of both Pooh and Tigger.)