Since 1966, Walt Disney Pictures have been entertaining us with various versions of Winnie the Pooh through theatrical featurettes, television series, direct-to-video films and theatrical feature-length films. Winnie is certainly an icon for the company and a money maker. According to a Fortune magazine article, it has been estimated that Winnie the Pooh features and merchandise generate as much revenue as Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy and Pluto combined. But sometimes Disney doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone.
It is rumored that the real reason that Disney has produced yet another Pooh film for 2011 is for its mistake it made back in 2007. Although only 46 years of age, Disney thought that the little guy needed a facelift. A new TV show was created, My Friends Tigger and Pooh, which featured Pooh with a super hero outfit and a replacement for Christopher Robin; a tomboy girl named Darby. It turns out, Disney received complaints from parents saying, “This isn’t the same Winnie the Pooh I grew up with” and sales declined.
The remedy is the new, simply titled, Winnie the Pooh which had Disney literally going back to the drawing boards. The film is a breath of fresh air to true fans of the silly old bear. Every attempt of this new version was to make it look “old,” like the 60’s originals. The studio went back to the watercolor backgrounds and hand-drawn characters. Just watch Winnie’s eyebrows. There’s something comforting about how they move as only a hand-drawn cartoon can. Even the music was planned to sound as close as the Sherman Brothers’ originals. Most of the vocals are provided by Zooey Deschanel’s beautiful voice. Known more for her acting, Ms. Deschanel proved she could sing when she played Will Ferrell’s girlfriend in Elf.
Like the originals, Pooh opens with a look into Christopher Robin’s bedroom. The narrator, this time by John Cleese, explains that Christopher is a boy who likes to collect things and his biggest collection is his stuffed animals. Then the camera pans over to the famous Winnie the Pooh book, the cover opens and the story begins with Pooh asleep in his bed. The narrator has to “shake the book” in order to wake him up. The movie makes the most of this creative gimmick.
All the characters are back (sans Gopher for some reason) and all of them act and sound just like you remember them. All of them except rabbit who has a distinctly different personality than in the past, but a welcomed change. The “older” rabbit was much more cranky. This one is much more adventurous.
Though the intended audience is mainly preschoolers, this movie is a great example of what Disney does best - providing a simple story that young ones understand and giving the characters great lines and humor that adults can appreciate. The storyline is quite simple as well and sort of like an episode of Seinfeld - a story about nothing. Winnie is on constant lookout for honey (will someone please give this poor bear some food?!), Eeyore has lost his tail again and Owl misreads a note from Christopher Robin thinking that he has been captured by a “backson” when in reality, he just misread the words “be back soon.” There is no preachy message, absolutely no current pop culture references and all the songs are short and a little two sweet for most adults tastes. Just a fun, innocent film about friendship and problem solving. Running at a mere 69 minutes, the film is accompanied by an new short, The Ballad of Nessie. It’s a story about a friendly and shy Loch Ness monster, her best friend MacQuack, rubber duck and how they came to live in their current home. It too is a simple story that has all the charm and wit of earlier shorts from the company.
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