Winnie the Pooh

Voices of: Jim Cummings, Craig Ferguson, John Cleese, Bud Luckey, Jack Boulter, Travis Oates, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Wyatt Dean Hall, Tom Kenny
Directed by: Stephen J. Anderson, Don Hall
Rating: G
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Comedy
2011

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: The friends of the Hundred Acre Wood discover a note from Christopher Robin and mistakenly believe he was kidnapped by a creature called the Backson.

Review:

Tim: Six years after the last Winnie the Pooh movie (Pooh's Heffalump Movie), Disney delivered the 5th film in the franchise, the first movie to simply be titled, Winnie the Pooh. It's a perfectly decent movie, but it's hard to feel very excited about anything that happens in this film. My kids enjoyed the movie, mostly because it feels very similar to the other franchise films. I wouldn't say the movie adds much and it's certainly not a "must see", but it was fine.

The film does work hard to feel similar to the other movies. So, you get the characters hopping along the storybook and seeing the words, for example. This has always been one of my favorite quirks of these movies and I appreciated seeing that again here. You get the average-to-below-average musical numbers (another hallmark of this franchise). The animation is cute, sparse, and overall, quite effective. I appreciate the way this film looked, as it connects with the legacy of this franchise. That's actually a really good thing. The story is simple and expected, but that's perfectly fine. These movies were always meant for younger audiences. Now, while similarities abound, there's some differences, too. The biggest one is that there are some changes to the cast. Jim Cummings returns as Pooh and Tigger and Travis Oates is Piglet, but the rest of the characters are voiced by new actors. I would say that this was less than effective. They brought back the most iconic voice actors, but the other changes felt odd to me. I didn't think Craig Ferguson made a very good Owl. Bud Luckey was fine as Eeyore, but his voice is clearly different. The rest are similar, not bad, but a departure from the norm. I didn't think any of the cast did a noticeably better job than the previous ones.

The story was fine, although it did feel somewhat redundant. So many of these friends' adventures happen because of their relative idiocy and that's the case again here. The Backson felt very similar to the "frightening" Heffalumps of the previous movies. Pooh and his friends don't know what they are talking about, and there's fear and uncertainty about the unknown. Nothing here felt especially new or exciting. This is fine for the youngest viewers- my six year-old son and three year-old daughter enjoyed the movie- but for viewers who aren't really interested in repetition, it feels like the filmmakers just pulled out the same bag of tricks. They are cute, safe tricks, yes. But, they are the same.

I think Winnie the Pooh had a chance to more than it did. It could have been the start of a new era for this franchise. That didn't happen. It was seven years before another film in the franchise came out, the live action Christopher Robin. As I write this, it's been a decade since this film's release. It didn't reinvigorate the franchise, obviously. It gave yet another movie that was perfectly fine, but forgettable.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Pooh's Heffalump Movie, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh