Winnie the Pooh (2011) Film Review

It certainly is refreshing to see a traditional, hand drawn film that manages to stay true to the original formula and not to commit the offence that most animated features do nowadays, which is to be littered with pop culture references. This film is not a blockbuster. It’s not in 3-D. It doesn’t have CGI animation either. This is a humble film, confident in its ability to keep both younger and older audiences entertained.

The performances are all done extremely well. Jim Cummings does a fantastic job with both the ever-hungry Pooh and ever-bouncy Tigger (as he has done since The Tigger Movie) and John Cleese’s voice makes for a warm and welcoming narrator. My personal favourite performance however, has to go to Craig Ferguson as Owl. Owl is still the “intellectual” he’s always been, and this “intelligence” is the drive for most of the main plot elements.

The film is, in many ways, a love letter to fans of the original The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. It has all the classic characters (no heffalumps) and tells a short story with no real climax and great musical numbers, just like the original.

The formula for the plot is similar to what’s been seen before, but what keeps it from feeling repetitive are the surreal and witty jokes made throughout the film. Each character’s trademark personality is used to form and strengthen the surprisingly sophisticated jokes, which leads to many “laugh out loud" moments.

The songs and their sequences are spectacularly animated and imaginative, the best example being the song Everything is Honey and it’s sequence, which feels very trippy. Another impressively surreal sequence is that of The Backson Song, in which the entirety of the song’s performance is displayed with moving chalk drawings. The re-imagining of the intro song to the original film is also noteworthy for its nostalgia factor.

In conclusion, Winnie the Pooh is a short, nostalgic gem of a film. If you love Winnie the Pooh, classic hand-drawn animation or are looking for an animated film that does not rely on CGI and pop culture references, then look no further than this beautiful film.

4/5