Winnie the Pooh

2011 cartoon

Rating: 15/20 (Jen: 13/20; Emma: 19/20; Abbey: 20/20; Sophie: too young to rate movies, especially ones this explicit)

Plot: Pooh wants honey, Eeyore's lost his tael, and Owl's got everybody convinced that a terrifying creature called a Backsoon has kidnapped Christopher Robin. It's just another afternoon in the bedroom of a terminally deranged young English boy. You just know that in a future sequel, Owl and Rabbit are going to convince him to start his classmates and/or parents. Actually, where are his parents in these movies? Somebody better check the freezer!

This is not your parents' Winnie the Pooh cartoon! No, in this one, Pooh Bear is disemboweled in what has to be the most horrifyingly grotesque scene this side of one of those Saw movies. Actually, this isn't a carbon copy of the older Disney Pooh material at all. It shares a love for childlike songs, endearingly simple and nostalgic animated backgrounds and characters, a wonderful playfulness, and sweet little stories. It actually does some things better than the original. It blends its stories, some from Milne's text and some created specially for this, really well, perfect for the no-attention-span of modern kiddos. The 2D animation doesn't look as flat as the characters weave in and out of their settings. And this is a whole lot funnier than the original with some genuine laugh-out-loud moments. This new Pooh's got a wackier tone that is different from its predecessor while not disrespecting the previous stories or its source material. (It should be noted that my wife, a Pooh aficionado, did seem offended by a lot of the goings-on here.) I also really liked the voicework despite having to initially get used to the slightly-different-sounding character voices. Some guy named Jim Cummings, an actor with a resume packed with versatile voice acting roles, does both Pooh and Tigger. We recognized Bud Luckey, the depressed clown in Toy Story 3, as (of course) Eeyore. Luckey's more of an animator than an actor, but he could make a career out of voicing depressed characters. Checking imdb.com, it looks like he's got a handful of roles on the animated horizon--suicidal monkey, despondent puppet, moody Amish guy, heartbroken octopus. One of my favorite people, Craig Ferguson, is perfect as Owl, and John Cleese should win some kind of award for not making me miss Sebastian Cabot. I didn't care much for the songs in this one although there were some clever lyrics. Pooh's a briskly-paced barely hour-long breezy flick that's great for young children and funny enough for older ones. And it might help Disney make a buttload of money with children's clothes and stuffed animals, so everybody wins!