51. Winnie the Pooh (2011)

After the positive reactions to The Princess and the Frog and Tangled, it looked like audiences were finally warming up to Disney again. I can only assume that Disney didn’t want to risk their recently reclaimed popularity after years of critical and financial disappointment and so decided to play it safe by going back to old territory with Winnie the Pooh, a small and simple film featuring familiar ideas and characters that was sure to draw audiences in. I still find it a rather strange choice that this film was made, as there doesn’t really seem to be sufficient reason for it to be, but it’s nice to see this world again after so long.

The film is Disney’s last traditionally animated feature (as of the time I’m writing this) and while it’s hardly a big, showy send-off to traditional animation, it certainly looks very nice. The animation is very smooth and lively, with clear and crisp colours and beautifully painted backgrounds; it really does just look like an updated version of the original The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, with only a few slight tweaks to art style and character design (namely, Christopher Robin). It’s nothing revolutionary or unique to shout about, but the animation is certainly strong and some sequences, such as Pooh’s honey fantasy and Owl’s description of the Backson do stand out as being especially imaginative. 

I’m pretty sure this is how Orson Welles died 

The story resembles the original The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh in that it’s less of a singular narrative and more like a few different stories collected together, although they are more interconnected and weaved together, here, as this is not a combination of pre-established shorts, like the original. The film focuses on three stories – Pooh’s quest for Hunny, Eeyore’s search for a new tail, and the group’s attempts to rescue Christopher Robin from the dreaded “Backson” (he’s actually just at school and will be “back soon”). The stories all flow well enough and intersect together at the end to make a satisfying and appropriate conclusion, although after that the film does kind of awkwardly end, without the same kind of emotional satisfaction as the original. There really isn’t any more to it, than that; like the original, this movie is definitely made for children and thus keeps things as basic as possible, but of course, there’s nothing really wrong with that.

The characters are the same, we know all these guys already – Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, Rabbit, Eeyore, Owl, Kanga, Roo, Christopher Robin, they’re all here, except Gopher, but somehow I doubt anyone misses him. The characters are mostly all the same, though they tend to be a little more exaggerated than they were in the original film and some are a bit more prominent than others – Owl in particular gets a strangely large amount of time dedicated to him, almost as much as Pooh himself. The different voices can also be a little distracting, but most of the impressions are pretty much spot on and the only noticeably different ones – that is to say, Rabbit and Owl – still fit the characters well. The only one I don’t care for is Christopher Robin, who I don’t think really sounds right; I get that he’s supposed to sound more like a modern British kid would, but I don’t know it just sounds strange and a little too young, I don’t think it really matches with his older looking character design or general personality, but that’s just me. Besides that the group is... perhaps a little too stupid; the characters of the Hundred Acre Wood have always been a little airheaded, but it’s usually more a case of charming innocence and naiveté, whereas here they just seem really, legitimately dumb. It allows for a few good jokes, but I do think it goes a bit far at times; it works for some characters, like Owl, or Pooh, to a degree, but seeing Piglet and Rabbit act so stupid doesn’t really seem right. Other than that, John Cleese is a perfect choice for the narrator, who serves the same role as the one in the original film and honestly, is just as friendly and engaging.

The heffalump uh I mean the woozle uh I mean the pink elephant uh I mean the Backson

The songs are mostly like those of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, as well as explicitly featuring the original “Winnie the Pooh” theme and a couple of songs that are quite obviously inspired by similar ones from the original film. The songs are fun and cute, but simplistic; the lyricism isn’t exactly inventive or masterful, but there is at least an attempt at matching Disney’s lyrical style which works well at times. “The Tummy Song” and “It’s Gonna be Great” demonstrate this style, as well as resembling “Rumbly in my Tumbly” and “The Wonderful Thing about Tiggers”, respectively; “Everything is Honey” also follows this style but feels a little more original. Similarly, “The Backson Song” obviously takes inspiration from “Heffalumps and Woozles” with its dark, jaunty rhythm, kooky rhymes, surreal visuals and bizarre animation; just like the song it takes its inspiration from, this a very fun number and the best sequence of the film. Other than that there a couple songs from, of all people, Zooey Deschanel, who on paper seems like a strange choice but in practice I think her soothing, melodic voice suits the tone and feel of the film very well.

Winnie the Pooh is a decent movie, but there’s not much to it, so honestly, I don’t have much to say. It’s very much a movie for young children, even more so than the original, being even more simplistic and short, clocking in at barely an hour. The characters are timeless, of course, but I do think the film’s somewhat more modern sense of humour means that they are forced into positions that don’t entirely suit them; the nucleus for all these classic characters is still there, but some of their traits are exaggerated to the point where they don’t quite act like themselves. Overall, though, Winnie the Pooh is pretty much exactly what you’d expect – a cute, visually appealing movie with some nice music and a good heart; I’m still not entirely sure why it was made at all and it’s on a much smaller scale than anything Disney had made for a long time, but I suppose at this point perhaps it was appropriate for them to dial things down a bit for a year and take a bit of a break. 

6/10

Next Week: Wreck-it Ralph!

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