By the time Zooey Deschanel's bouncy "So Long" plays over the closing credits of Winnie the Pooh, one wants the warm feelings to, paraphrasing the lyrics, linger “just a little bit longer."
After all, a running time of just over an hour doesn’t seem sufficient after being reacquainted with the cuddly denizens of the Hundred Acre Wood.
Winnie the Pooh marks the welcome return of A.A. Milne’s characters as they were adapted by Disney animators (they first appeared theatrically in a 1966 featurette). Advance press states that this new film’s creators read the original storybooks for inspiration. Their affection and respect for Pooh and his friends comes through on the screen.
What's so pleasantly surprising about this brief, delightful movie is that watching it feels like discovering a nugget that's spent many years in the Disney vaults, just waiting for a chance to charm audiences. Everything in its presentation — from its vocal characterizations to its muted colors — is spot on, owing largely to the aesthetics set by the first Pooh films. Amidst this era of 3D animation and relentless pop culture references, Winnie the Pooh’s hand-drawn images and quaint but spry storytelling combine to make it both a nostalgia trip and a fresh experience.
As the movie begins, Winnie the Pooh (Jim Cummings) is rustled from his slumber at the comical urging of an insistent narrator (John Cleese). The clever interplay between Pooh and the narrator establishes a breezily magical tone, one very much in keeping with the earliest Winnie the Pooh films. In a kind of breaking of the fourth wall, the characters are able to easily move between the Hundred Acre Wood and the pages of the book that tells their story.
A competition to find a tail for the reliably gloomy but strangely lovable Eeyore eventually turns into a quest to rescue Christopher Robin (Jack Boulter), whose “be back soon” note is misread by Owl (Craig Ferguson) to mean that he’s been captured by a horrible creature of the forest named “the Backson.”
Through a series of mishaps precipitated by Pooh’s love for honey, many of the characters — including Kanga, Roo and Rabbit — end up in the pit that had been dug to trap the Backson. Their predicament makes for a rich source of comedy and provides some of the movie’s biggest laughs. To complement Winnie the Pooh’s gentle humor, the search for the Backson adds a touch of kid-appropriate suspense. (For an amusing continuation of this story thread, be sure to stay through the end credits.)
John Lasseter, the chief creative force behind Pixar, is listed as the executive producer of this lovely, modest little film. It’s one of which he can be proud. Winnie the Pooh, much like Lasseter’s Toy Story series, believes in the magic of make-believe.
This article appears in Jul 14-20, 2011.