The Film Yap

A sweet little slice of apple pie, “Winnie the Pooh” was one of the overlooked gems of the summer movie season — an oversight parents and their kids can rectify on home video.

No, this isn’t some brash new take on the Hundred Acre Wood. Pooh Bear isn’t an international spy, Tigger doesn’t drive drunk and kill a homeless man, and Christopher Robin’s father isn’t suddenly a land developer wanting to level the forest. It’s the same old same old warm fuzzy sweater we grew up with, that our parents and their parents grew up with.

It’s a sweet, simple story of a bear and his honey … er, hunny. Pooh has a rumbly in his tumbly and is looking to score some of that sweet nectar of the bees, but there are bigger problems. Like Eeyore losing his tail, which becomes the perfect opportunity for a contest: Whomever finds Eeyore the most suitable tail wins a pot of honey!

But there is a complication when Christopher Robin goes missing and is feared captured by the hideous, monstrous creature known as the Backsun. The gang knows this because Christopher Robin’s note to them says he will be “back sun,” which Owl interprets quite liberally as him being abducted by a monster, and soon the gang is formulating a plot to catch him.

The film’s main strength is in gently weaving together several otherwise disconnected stories. There’s another where Tigger recruits Eeyore as a Tigger, the Backsun plot, the Eeyore tail caper and, through it all, Pooh’s quest for honey. It’s all very leisurely, without the crass pop culture jokes, scatological humor and celebrity voice casting.

The film, running briskly at just more than an hour, is told as a literal storybook tale and in some instances the characters interact with the text, wandering out of the illustrations and onto the prose. It’s a fun little device that actually figures into the plot to a degree later in the film.

The music, much of which is sung by actress Zooey Deschanel, is wonderful as well and really lends itself well to the charming vibe the movie carries.

The Blu-ray is oddly packaged (at least my copy was) in a DVD-sized case (the three-disc set is in traditionally sized packaging), and features a solid amount of extras, including a couple of nice featurettes, a sing-along, deleted scenes, additional “Pooh” short films and the short “The Ballad of Nessie.”

Film: 4.5 Yaps
Extras: 4.5 Yaps