51 – Winnie the Pooh
The 2011 film Winnie the Pooh is
essentially a sequel to 1977's The Many Adventures of
Winnie the Pooh. This means it
has the difficult task of being both a worthy sequel while also
trying to make sure it's accessible enough for it to find a new
audience. In 34 years, surprisingly little has changed so this review
is going to be fairly short and I don't want to be reiterating too
much so please read my review on the first movie. The story is
adapted from 3 different stories but the basic idea is that
Christopher Robin has left a mysterious note which causes the
inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Wood to think that he's been captured
by a horrible monster called the Backson.
Of
course, the story isn't nearly as important as the characters, in
this case. All the characters are exactly as you'd expect them to be.
There are no big surprises or anything if you're familiar with the
characters of the Winnie the Pooh stories.
Winnie the Pooh himself is as single minded as ever in his eternal
quest for honey, though he does learn a valuable lesson by the end.
The rest of the cast is there as well with Piglet, as meek as ever,
Rabbit, as bossy as ever, the perpetually depressed Eeyore and the
know-it-all Owl. Kanga and Roo also make an appearance and who could
forget the excitable Tigger? Like I mentioned in my first review, the
characters are very simple but exactly the kinds of imaginary friends
a child would come up with.
Being
an updated version of the original, everything feels very familiar
but with a really nice new coat of paint. The music is incredible and
really well done. There were more songs that I expected which made
this into a sort of musical, but it really worked well. The animation
is excellent as usual and they continued a lot of things I loved from
the first movie. They really make it feel like a storybook's
illustrations coming to life with these amazing backgrounds and the
words on the pages and narrator actually interacting with the
characters. I really love the idea of the characters interacting with
the pages of the book but I do think they overused the idea a bit
this time. It felt too much like they were flaunting the idea,
whereas in the 1977 movie they just let it be a reality of the world
they lived in.
The
humor is incredible again, with the exact sort of word play jokes and
misunderstandings you'd expect from Winnie the Pooh. Other than that,
the movie is filled with a really great feeling of nostalgia. It does
lack a bit of the poignancy of the first movie but it's funny and
very true to the original. I do have to make a special note of the
end credits, which are just incredible. Christopher Robin's stuffed
animals are all presented in the real world positioned as though a
child was playing with them, acting out the scenes we just saw in the
movie. This really ties in what I think the whole theme of Winnie
the Pooh is – that it all
comes from a child's imagination.
Just
like the 1977 movie, I wasn't expecting anything incredibly deep or
thoughtful. It needs something that is, arguably, more difficult to
capture. The idea of whimsy and playfulness with no absolutely no
cynicism. The idea that a child could come up with all of this and
that it all springs from imagination. In that case, I think this
movie succeeds. It might not succeed as much as the first movie, but
it definitely captures those feeling and ideas in a way that modern
kid's movies really don't anymore. Not that that's a bad thing. These
stories have a really important place for a lot of people but I think
kid's movies have evolved in a different direction since the original
Winnie the Pooh was
written by A.A.Milne. In any case, if you loved the original, or for
that matter if you've ever loved Winnie the Pooh in any form at all,
you'll love this movie.
51
down. 2 to go.
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