Film Reviews

Winnie The Pooh

• Rating:
• Director: Don Hall
• Starring: Craig Ferguson
• Details: US / 74mins (G).

Like the recent Yogi Bear I never got into the adventures of A.A Milne's perpetually hungry bear of Hundred Acre Wood, but there were two surprises in store: I had totally forgotten that Pooh was such a denser, and the extremely short running time is a big ask for today's ticket prices. But as a colleague said to me after the screening, 'You can't get cynical about Winnie The Pooh.' Very true.
To fatten up this movie package, Disney throw in two shorts to promote their Disney Junior channel. The first boasts a small adventure from the kid buccaneers of Never Never Land and, what may be indicative of what kids expect in their cinematic animated movies today, when one of the pirates asked the audience 'do you want to join my crew?' a young boy at the back of the theatre shouted 'no' to the laughter of his friends. With its old school animated style, that didn't auger well for the innocent and cuddly Winnie The Pooh.
Pooh (voiced by Disney veteran Jim Cummings) wakes up feeling hungry and sets out to find some 'hunny' for breakfast. He runs into the depressing donkey Eeyore (Bud Luckey) who has lost his tail and Pooh, and the rest of the gang, decides to help him find it. Along the way they fear that the monster Bakson has kidnapped Christopher Robin (Jack Boutler) and attempt to track him down.
As you can tell, the story is thin on the ground. But deliberately so. The plot has the easily distracted nature of the age group it's aimed at (five and under) with it wandering over here for a minute to check something out before wandering back to do something else. In between, Pooh and co. need little excuse to belt out jaunty numbers that keep this quiet little movie bouncing along. John Cleese's narration is fun as he not only tells us what's happening but talks to Pooh; narrating from a book, Cleese is amused to see Pooh trip over the words that appear at the bottom of the screen. Pooh is less amused but those words come in handy when he gets trapped in a pit.
The (very) short running time may be perfect for the adults heading along to this: the kids won't get bored and, because there's little happening to hold interest, they'll be glad to see it's over quicker than usual.

Review by Gavin Burke