One of the last projects that Walt Disney personally supervised was a feature length adaptation of A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh books. After examining what they had, Walt decided that the humor was too slight and the story too small to support a feature length film and the project was turned into a Pooh featurette which garnered laudatory reviews and much audience acclaim. After Walt’s death, two other featurettes were produced (one winning an Academy Award) before all three were combined into a feature length movie in 1977. In the years since, there have been other Pooh-based projects on both film and television, but this new Winnie the Pooh attempts for the first time to create a feature length movie using those original shorts as their inspiration. What emerges is a sweet and pleasant film for tots and a nostalgic reminder of yesteryear for adults but something that seems too delicate and whimsical for audiences of the 21st century who tend to like their entertainments faster, louder, and more intense. Winnie the Pooh for all its gentle charms seems a few decades too late for the masses.
Winnie the Pooh (Blu-ray Combo Pack)
Directed by Stephen Anderson, Don Hall
Studio: Disney
Year: 2011
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 1080p AVC codec
Running Time: 63 minutes
Rating: G
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 English; Dolby Digital 5.1 Spanish, French
Subtitles: SDH, Spanish, French
Region: A-B-C
MSRP: $39.99
Release Date: October 25, 2011
Review Date: October 21, 2011
The Film
3.5/5
Upon arising, Winnie the Pooh (Jim Cummings) feels that familiar rumbling in his tummy, a sure sign that his stomach craves honey, but he’s fresh out of the delicious nectar. A quick trip to friend Eeyore’s (Bud Luckey) place finds the donkey with his own problem: he’s lost his tail. The search for a new tail with a honey pot as the prize leads to several different suggestions from the various inhabitants of Hundred Acre Wood (a cuckoo clock, a balloon, a squeeze box, a bedspring), but they get distracted from their quest by a note left behind by Christopher Robbin (Jack Boulter) which suggests he’s been abducted by a monster called a Backson (Huell Howser) though the note actually read “back soon.” The troop all then gather together to defend their beloved Christopher from this fiend as they go off in search of it.
As with the previous Pooh adventures, a storybook motif (narrated by John Cleese who sometimes participates in conversations with the characters) is used to usher the characters from one adventure to the next as they trip over the words on the pages and interact as illustrations in their own story. (The letters on the pages come in very handy late in the film when the gang gets trapped in a deep hole and can’t get out.) The personalities of the characters are so temperate (even the previously rambunctious Tigger seems more subdued here) that only the youngest of youngsters is going to find their whimsical charm endearing. The filmmakers keep the simple themes of loyalty to friends and concern for others intact and have added seven songs to the mix, some familiar from the earlier Pooh shorts and some new to this movie composed by Avenue Q and The Book of Mormon’s Tony-winning composer Robert Lopez and his wife Kristen, but only “The Tummy Song” and “A Very Important Thing to Do” make firm impressions. The animators have also carried over from the earlier shorts the fragile water-colored animation look that adds to the film’s distinctly nostalgic aura. For variety’s sake, the animators have mixed things up just a bit: part of the movie switches to chalkboard drawings, a definite visual side road that makes a delightful brief respite from the other more familiar style set to the tune of "The Backson Song", and later in the movie, Pooh undergoes a kind of surreal dream sequence in the song "Everything Is Honey" where he finally achieves an orgy of honey which satiates him for a few brief moments.
The producers have tried to cast the film with attention to voice actors who can come close to the very distinctive voices of the original cast like Sterling Holloway and Paul Winchell, and Jim Cummings who enacts both Pooh and Tigger comes close enough without possibly replacing those inimitable actors. Likewise Bud Luckey as Eeyore, Craig Ferguson as Owl, Travis Oates as the flea-brained Piglet, and Jack Boulter as Christopher are all just fine. Zooey Deschanel liltingly sings a couple of songs on the soundtrack even though she’s not a voice of one of the lead characters.
Video Quality
4/5
The film has been framed at 1.78:1 for this release and is presented in 1080p using the AVC codec. With the exception of Pooh’s red vest and a red balloon that figures importantly in the story, colors are much softer and more controlled than in most animated films of today due to the artists’ wishing to replicate the look of the original shorts. The line animation itself is solid and exact (though the previous DVD release of 1977’s The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh featured colors that were a bit warmer than here). There is some banding to be seen in the light-colored backgrounds, but overall it’s a very pleasant visual transfer that captures the mood of the drawings in the original Milne book quite nicely. The film has been divided into 14 chapters.
Audio Quality
3.5/5
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 sound mix uses the song score and Henry Jackman’s background music to give depth to the soundtrack of the film. There is a fair amount of bass in the music mix which gives the LFE channel something to do in this otherwise modest movie, but the surround channels aren’t utilized to their utmost to add ambiance to the slight story. There are a few moments of directionalized dialogue in the piece though most of the dialogue is rooted firmly to the center channel.
Special Features
3.5/5
All of the video features are presented in 1080p.
“Winnie the Pooh and His Story, Too” is an 8 ½-minute featurette exploring the history of the Winnie the Pooh stories from their original books through the Disney shorts and now this feature film. The film’s directors and narrator John Cleese help explain the filmmakers’ aims.
There are five deleted/extended scenes, some in full animation, some with in-between animation, and some in storyboard form, with introductions by directors Stephen Anderson and Don Hall explaining their exclusion from the finished film. They can be watched individually or in one 15-minute grouping.
“The Ballad of Nessie” is the short which accompanied Winnie the Pooh in theaters. It’s a charming 5 ½ -minute cartoon in which young dragon Nessie loses her home and must go find another eventually discovering Loch Ness. It’s also presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 sound.
“The Balloon” is a mini-Winnie the Pooh adventure where Pooh uses a balloon in order to get him some honey from a hive high in the treetops. It runs 2 ¾ minutes.
“Sing-Along with the Movie” is a mode which turns on subtitled song lyrics with a bouncing balloon to use if one wishes to sing along with the songs in the movie.
“Disney Song Selection” allows the user to play just the seven songs from the movie with sing-along lyrics provided. You can choose individual songs or play the entire song score in one 11-minute group.
“Creating the Perfect Nursery” has nursery decorators Ellie and Melissa describing how a nursery can be transformed into a Pooh wonderland in this 2 ¾-minute promotional ad.
The disc contains trailers for Cars 2, The Muppets, Lady and the Tramp, Tinker Bell and the Pixie Hollow Games, Junior, Secret of the Wings, and Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas.
Inside the package is a Pin the Tail on Eeyore game in a folded game booklet.
The second disc in the set is the DVD version of the movie.
In Conclusion
3.5/5 (not an average)
Charming and safe for the entire family but fairly insubstantial for older family members, Winnie the Pooh will likely captivate the very young but will not be a replacement for adults of the original Disney Pooh shorts.
Matt Hough
Charlotte, NC
