Winnie the Pooh (2011)

People are voting emotionally.

As Good As It Gets

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It had been an awfully long time since Disney had done anything with the beloved 'Winnie the Pooh' characters originally written by A.A Milne on the big screen, so it was lovely to see them return for this film.Using the style of story book tales coming alive this is a sweet natured film, with some lovely hand-drawn animation and some nice voice acting (though many of the voices are different to those who had appeared in other 'Pooh' films sadly), along with a few sprightly new songs.It is however a rather short film at around 63 minutes, and while I appreciate that it was aimed at younger audiences, it is rather short.A nice film though.

Firstly, I'd like to begin by saying that like many others, I, too, grew up watching various, previous, other things related to Disney's Winnie The Pooh franchise. I had a VHS copy of Winnie The Pooh And The Honey Tree, still have The Many Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh VHS tape, collected some of the volumes of The New Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh VHS series, had the Disney Classics Series book based on the package movie, etc. So I was somewhat in that phase of that being among the fixations I grew up on having. I saw some of the other movies too, like The Huffalump Movie. Pooh bear and pals have got to be among the most, if not just the most, recurring Disney characters in the company/studio's history. When I first heard about and saw the preview commercials promoting this latest movie starring the stuffed animal characters, I found that to be a surprise. But I wasn't in a rush to see it right away. After it hit theaters, I would watch this on a movie-based video site some time later. I was even more surprised at the simplistic title though. Whoever decided to go with that couldn't have called it Winnie The Pooh and The Backson instead? (Even though the viewers don't get to see the monster interacting with the other characters at all, but he still does make an appearance.) Why couldn't that had been done? It would've made it even more distinguished. Also, this just had to be included in the Disney animated features canon list. I don't think it should be, since The Many Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh is already a part of it. Most of the other movies in that list aren't paired with sequels or follow-ups (save from The Rescuers with The Rescuers Down Under and Fantasia with Fantasia 2000). Why someone felt the need to add this? Why make another movie featuring long-established characters and make it a part of it? Anyway, I wasn't feeling it. I didn't care for this one all that much. As a few of the other reviewers mentioned on here already, I, too, consider the animation to be one of the very few, bright spots in this. The writing isn't as well done. The characters were made even more simple than usual to the point that they're true simpletons. Like after everyone falls into the pit that they set up as a trap for the Backson, Piglet manages to escape, but (I forget how he got it exactly) he has a rope which he's supposed to extend down the hole for the others to grab onto, so they can be pulled out the hole and be free, as Rabbit repeatedly urges him to do. However, Piglet misinterprets this and he pulls the rope into five pieces instead. I don't know why this moment was incorporated into the story other than I guess somebody simply considered that to be funny, especially for the kids. As for the voice acting, the talent for most of the characters are replaced, which is another thing I found unexpected (save for the voice actors for Roo and Christopher Robin). Jim Cummings did fine as usual voicing Pooh and Tigger, successor voice actor of Piglet, Travis Oates, sounded like a fine imitation of the late original, John Fiedler, but some of the others I didn't care for as much. I have no idea why most who voiced the others couldn't have been used instead other than they might've had other commitments and were unavailable. I'm not really a big fan of Zooey Deschanel as a singer either, but concerning the music, I thought her performance of the theme song was decent enough. But with this being slightly over an hour, there are too many musical numbers that take up too much time and take away from the other parts of the movie. Overall, this doesn't feel quite the same as the past Pooh and friends movies. There a bits in this that are too much like what took place in the previous films. And the Backson doesn't make a physical appearance until after the end credits, but he isn't really all as fearsome as he seemed to be. With the way this was planned and executed, it would've been better off going straight to DVD/blu-ray.As for whether I recommend this or not, I wouldn't recommend it to those beyond the kiddie demographic. Most kids would more likely appreciate it more than some teens and adults. I don't consider it having much re-watch value, as it's one of those things that's worth seeing at least once. I'm with all those who consider it to be the worst in the franchise. Over a decade ago, after Disney dropped making traditionally animated movies following the box office disappointment of Home On The Range, a few years later, they'd attempt a comeback at 2D animation with The Princess And The Frog, which is the last Disney 2D animated movie not featuring already established characters. While that did better, it still wasn't quite good enough, so it was a return to CGI animated movies once again. A couple years later, a comeback was attempted a second time with this. I'm just pointing out the history of the track record concerning the on again, off again forms of animation used and done. I still get sore over the direction change of that and other studios. If I were involved in the animation industry, I'd refuse to go into CGI, not unless I'm allowed to do both that and traditional animation. Forget the way this horse-feathers is going now. It makes me detest the over-saturation so much. In conclusion, I'd say to stick to most other Pooh-related media. This isn't worth getting and owning on home video, unless it's to be given to a son, daughter, nephew, niece, grandson or granddaughter.

To this day this is the last traditionally animated Disney canon film. And as far as swan songs go, they could done a lot worse. It's definitely better than House on the Range, which held the same title for some years.In this film we return to the Hundred Acre Wood and its inhabitants. The whole films is a huge love letter to the original The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh and the whole world first imagined and created by A. A. Milne. And I like the homage a lot. The opening is spot on similar to the original, perfectly setting the tone, while the story telling is still very meta in that they speak to the narrator constantly and are perfectly aware that they're in a storybook. The book in question even works as a plot point as a literal object to be interacted with by the characters within, just like before. The art style is also eerily similar, which is impressive keeping in mind that the first film was made using the very cheap Xerox method, which resulted in a lot of scratchy lines and simple character designs, which in that case worked for the film's advantage. This time I suspect they had to work hard to achieve that same "bad" effect.However, it's not a perfect film. The stories, while pretty good and perfectly keeping in with the spirit of the characters and the original stories, are rather few in numbers and just don't have that same feel the originals had. This is mostly due to the fact that they had to replace pretty much all of the voice actors and some of them were radically different, which resulted in characters that don't feel familiar at all. Owl most noticeably. This new Owl is a maniac, a twitchy mess that always has to be right and is the driving force behind most of the plot. And... it just isn't right, simply said.It's not a bad film. But the original film is one of my all-time favourites among Disney classics. It's simple, heart-warming and utterly charming yet wise and thoughtful beyond its years. This has most of the charm and a good amount of the warmth, but it lacks the wisdom and even some of the simplicity.

If you read some of the glowing reviews here you might get the impression that this is a movie that is enjoyable for all ages, but this is very clearly aimed at youngsters. As an adult you might like it because it's well done and captures a sense of childish innocence, but that's not my thing. The animation approach is very much old-school Disney, the sort of movies I experienced as a kid in the 60s, but once again, that's not the sort of animation I most love; I prefer Disney as it became with movies like The Little Mermaid, so a throw-back doesn't work for me.It's not a bad movie, it's cute, and it clones previous Winnie the Pooh cartoons quite well, but it's not something I could stick with.