Disney Animation Studio's (DAS) 51st animated feature Winnie the Pooh takes us back into the stories of A.A. Milne. There a donkey named Eeyore, Kanga, and Little Roo. There's Rabbit, and Piglet, and there's Owl, but most of all Winnie the Pooh (there is also Tigger, but he is not apart of the song). In this installment, Eeyore has lost his tail and it's up to the gang to either find his old tail or fashion a replacement one.
Like the previous installment by DAS back in 1977, the stories are simple, much like the minds of their characters. The one genius thing about the Winnie the Pooh stories are how the minds of the characters imitate the minds of the child, Christopher Robin. After all, the characters are all imagined in the mind of Christopher, so it makes sense that they have the same thought process. Even the wisest of characters, Owl, who uses big words and impresses the others, is as outlandish and nonsensical as Tigger. It's not to say that these characters are unintelligent. Like a child they are still learning. They are gullible, easily excited, fearless in the face of real danger and scared in the face of imagined danger.
1977's The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh was a breakthrough not just in animation but in style. The physics of the film are still untouchable today. The way the characters act out certain scenes inside the book, walking across sentences, leaping from page to page, etc. It's still a joy to watch today. This new version uses a very similar format both in the physical storytelling and in the story arc. There is nothing incredibly different in this film compared to its predecessor, only the voices have changed and the animation is glossier.
For children who have not been exposed to the original film, I suppose this would be a nice film to grow up with. It's cute, innocent, and has a good moral backbone. The animation is up to snuff with Disney standards. It has a beautiful palette and a really nice finish. The characters haven't changed, only the quality of the animation, and for that I thank Disney.
For those who grew up with the 1977 original, this might be a sour grape in the bunch of DAS features. There is too much music, not enough action, and almost follows the old format to a "T." One aspect that Disney is not at fault at is the voice acting. Having grown up listening to Sterling Holloway as the voice of Pooh Bear, I knew going in that this wouldn't be the same. The same goes for the rest of the characters, and I applaud Jim Cummings filling in as both Pooh and Tigger. An arduous task to say the least and he does so with style. Still, I miss the old voices and will always associate those stories to the voices. New audiences will have no problem whatsoever.
The music. The original film had one big number (Heffalumps and Woozles) with a few minor songs thrown about ("Little Black Raincloud," "The rain, rain, rain came down" to name a few). This film seemed weighted down by some of the musical numbers. There are two larger numbers and what seemed like a lot of little ones thrown about. Part of the problem is that the film has such a short run time (barely over an hour) so the numbers are close together, taking away from the action of the story. Some are forced in there when a few lines of dialogue could have helped. It shows that there really wasn't that much of a story to begin with. Not to bash on the music too much, but I am not a huge Zooey Deschannel fan to begin with (at least on the mic) so that didn't help. Sorry Zooey.
Other than these problems the main thing I had wrong with the film was how eerily similar the format was to the original. From the songs to the jokes I was disappointed with the unoriginality of it all. That's not to say the entire film is a rip off, but I wanted to see something new, rather than the same format.
Regardless, it's a decent effort and another sign that Disney hasn't completely given up on making animated features the old fashioned way, though I was surprised by how little advertisement was put into the film's release. Did they forget or just run out of money after all of the Cars 2 ads? Children will enjoy, especially the young ones. This will be a nice DVD to pull out for a car ride or a rainy day. It's hard for a film like this to compete with the 3-D juggernauts of Cars 2 and Kung Fu Panda 2, but I commend DAS in their effort and pray that their next releases is something to write home about. It looks like the next few releases might be computer animated like Tangled and Bolt, so who knows what could happen. Disney's roots are embedded in ink and paint, but how much longer will the magic last? It will be a sad day when the ink wells dry up at Disney.
