Winnie the Pooh (2011)
Featuring the voice talent of Jim Cummings, John Cleese, Craig Ferguson, Bud Luckey, Jack Boulter, Travis Oates, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Wyatt Dean Hall, and Tom Kenny
Directed by Stephen J. Anderson and Don Hall
In a lovely return to hand-drawn animation and certainly hooking onto the nostalgia value of previous Pooh incarnations, Winnie the Pooh is a short 55-minute journey (63 minutes if you include the end credits...which you should since the cute factor invades those as well all the way to the end) into the world of the Hundred Acre Wood where Christopher Robin and his childhood "stuffed animal" pals frolic and get into all sorts of adventures.
Admittedly, I've only seen 1977's The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, so I'm unfamiliar with The Tigger Movie, Piglet's Big Movie, and Pooh's Heffalump Movie, but at least with the 1977 flick it was made up of a trio of stories. Here, much to my surprise, we follow one storyline which, like most Pooh tales begins with a search for honey and eventually shifts into a search for both Eeyore's tail and the horrifying creature known as the Backson which has apparently captured Christopher Robin. With a film as short as this, saying much more would be spoiling its simplicity, so I'll leave it at that. Needless to say, the innocence of the storytelling is wonderfully engaging.
With some lovely tunes from Avenue Q and Book of Mormon writer Robert Lopez (proving he's not just creative at writing funny raunchy stuff) and his wife Kristen Anderson-Lopez which marry absolutely perfectly with the quirky intonation of Zooey Deschanel who croons a few of them, the whole flick (much like the recent The Muppets) just makes you smile. Couple the songs with some absolutely charming voice acting from Jim Cummings as Pooh, John Cleese as our omniscent narrator, Craig Ferguson as Owl, and Bud Luckey as Eeyore, and the flick is just as pleasant for the ears as it is for the eyes.
Granted, the flick is certainly a bit too simple for its own good and it's not reinventing the wheel in terms of the Pooh legacy (not that it should), but it's so goshdarn lovable in every single frame filled with a lot of wit and even more heart. I'm not really a Winnie the Pooh fan -- I'm indifferent, really -- but this film made me grow to love the stuffed bear more than I ever have before.
Admittedly, I've only seen 1977's The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, so I'm unfamiliar with The Tigger Movie, Piglet's Big Movie, and Pooh's Heffalump Movie, but at least with the 1977 flick it was made up of a trio of stories. Here, much to my surprise, we follow one storyline which, like most Pooh tales begins with a search for honey and eventually shifts into a search for both Eeyore's tail and the horrifying creature known as the Backson which has apparently captured Christopher Robin. With a film as short as this, saying much more would be spoiling its simplicity, so I'll leave it at that. Needless to say, the innocence of the storytelling is wonderfully engaging.
With some lovely tunes from Avenue Q and Book of Mormon writer Robert Lopez (proving he's not just creative at writing funny raunchy stuff) and his wife Kristen Anderson-Lopez which marry absolutely perfectly with the quirky intonation of Zooey Deschanel who croons a few of them, the whole flick (much like the recent The Muppets) just makes you smile. Couple the songs with some absolutely charming voice acting from Jim Cummings as Pooh, John Cleese as our omniscent narrator, Craig Ferguson as Owl, and Bud Luckey as Eeyore, and the flick is just as pleasant for the ears as it is for the eyes.
Granted, the flick is certainly a bit too simple for its own good and it's not reinventing the wheel in terms of the Pooh legacy (not that it should), but it's so goshdarn lovable in every single frame filled with a lot of wit and even more heart. I'm not really a Winnie the Pooh fan -- I'm indifferent, really -- but this film made me grow to love the stuffed bear more than I ever have before.
The RyMickey Rating: A-
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