Winnie the Pooh (2011)

Review

It can sometimes be hard to determine if Disney's children's movies are actually covering a need or rather creating new ones, but when it comes to the (cleverly milked) Winnie the Pooh franchise, it is at least based on timeless and intelligent children's literature. With that said, this year's entry in the series about that silly old bear, the first since The Heffalump Movie back in 2005, is far from the quality of the original, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh from 1977. This one cannot quite boast the 1977 film's level of clever dialogue and banter filled with double entrendes which makes the experience equally enjoyable for the adults as for the children. And the stories presented here are, in all honesty, more or less rehashes or lesser versions of previous Pooh adventures. Still, the younger kids will hardly have a problem with that, and with this film's light narrative and mild suspense, this will probably suit 3-4 year-olds better than the slightly older ones (for which a film like The Heffalump Movie might work better). What does work impeccably, however, is the good old hand-drawn animation and the pleasant, sensible pacing, which all in all makes Winnie the Pooh a welcome reunion with A. A. Milne's beloved characters.