Winnie the Pooh

So my niece and nephew came up to from Oklahoma City to visit!  This always provides me with an excuse to go see a kid's movie without being creepy.  I usually try to go see my kid's movies on Wednesdays at the latest possible time.  But with a pair of kid's in tow, I can go to a summer matinee!

This is a new non-CG animated Pooh adventure.  And it is exceptionally short.  "Winnie the Pooh" is 69 minutes long.  It is preceded by a short film, "The Ballad of Nessie," which I would like to discuss first.

"The Ballad of Nessie" clocks in a 12 minutes.  It's a great little story about how Nessie came to be in Loch Ness.  She is essentially kicked out of her pond by an evil golf course developer.  We then follow her as she and her rubber duckie as they go in search of a new home.  "Nessie" is a beautifully animated film.  The drawings are very late 40s to early 50s style, while the backgrounds look like remnants of tartan.  The whole story is told as a poem read lovingly by Billy Connolly.  "Nessie" is a sweetheart of a movie and completely worth the price of admission alone.

"Nessie" Rating: 8 out of 10

Now for the feature.  "Winnie the Pooh" is fairly well done.  I'm going to do my best to not compare it to the original.  I will make this comparison though: the animation is wonderful.  Sometimes it even evokes that sketchy look that older Disney movies had.  The change in voices messed with me a bit, but might not bother younger kids (I understand that the original actors can't be expected to live and/or perform forever).  That said, I really enjoyed John Cleese as the narrator.  He has an wonderful ability to capture the childishness of the story and the fun of talking to the characters.

The soundtrack features She & Him performing both the theme song and some original songs.  The original songs are not the strongest in Disney history but, when Zooey Deschanel sings them, her angel voice elevates them.

The humor is a little too dated in a modern way.  I don't know how to quite explain it.  The characters' reactions are a bit sitcom-y and the physical comedy is not funny (like most contemporary physical comedy).  The rest of the movie is filled with great stuff that really feels like it belongs in a Pooh story.  This maybe makes the other elements I mentioned stand out more.  It just creates a slightly uneven tone to the film.

On the whole, I say to check this one out (if only for "The Ballad of Nessie").  If you have young kids, they will love this movie.  My nephew was cracking up almost the whole time.  He and the other children in the theater so thoroughly enjoyed it, that it has probably skewed my perception of this movie and I'm glad for it.  This movie absolutely owned its target audience while remaining more than watchable by adult standards.

"Pooh" Rating: 6.5 out of 10