So I watched some Winnie the Pooh films because I love Winnie the Pooh and he is the best.
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
This is the purest form of the Disney Winnie the Pooh and a gem that must be watched by everyone on this planet. You should be comparing all the other films to this one in terms of charm and quality. It directly follows many of the stories from the book, but reorders them and adds a bit to make them flow into each other. The use of a narrator turning the pages and interacting with Pooh is absolutely delightful and the music is classic. Being an old film, there’s expected hiccups like repeated animations and the same text filling each page of the book but it doesn’t draw away from the magic. It’s a timeless classic I could watch every day of my life.
Rating: 5/5
Winnie the Pooh Discovers the Seasons
Oh bother. This was a purely educational short film about how Christopher Robin gives Pooh a calendar and they explore the many non-adventures of the seasons. After watching a few minutes of it, I skipped to the next one.
Rating: 1/5
Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore
Another short film, it feels like something just thrown together carelessly. The animations are awkward and the voices unfamiliar. You can definitely tell which parts of the story came directly from the book and which parts were written up for the film.
Rating: 2/5
The Tigger Movie
Full of action and tear-jerking moments, this movie was actually pretty good. It’s an original story where Tigger, unable to fit in with the rest of his friends, goes on a big search for his family. I liked that Roo plays a starring role in the film. The music is not bad either. This film shoots the Winnie the Pooh franchise into the modern era, but I think it was a little overdone with some scenes feeling too actiony for the storybook characters and Tigger’s delusion being a bit forced. Nonetheless, a fun film worth watching.
Rating: 4/5
Piglet’s Big Movie
I didn’t like this one. Piglet feels unrecognized for his deeds and is much too small for anything it seems. He disappears in search for a useful role for himself and his friends use his scrapbook to search for him. Looking through the scrapbook, they relive old memories that are altered (from the original stories) to make Piglet the hero. Rather than getting a nice flow of stories like in The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, it was more like a series of Owl’s long-winded tales. Also I hated the music. It’s an awkward lady that sounds like a man singing those horrible kid-inspirational songs in boring montage scenes. Blech.
Rating: 3/5
Pooh’s Heffalump Movie
This movie focuses on Roo and teaches the lesson about accepting people’s differences and getting along with everyone. It’s an entertaining movie but easily forgettable. I don’t even remember enough to write any more for this review, but it was a decent watch.
Rating: 4/5
Winnie the Pooh
Finally, this is the Pooh movie I’ve been waiting for. It returns to the feel of the original movie with the use of a narrator and a book. Unlike the recent ones, it focuses more on the dialogue and the storytelling instead of action scenes, and that’s what I loved best about Winnie the Pooh! Gone are the garbage background songs and back is the wonderful charm that’s been missing for so long. The only gripe that I have is that many of the voices have changed, but I guess it’s inevitable and perhaps only noticeable if you watch like 7 Winnie the Pooh films together. This movie is so refreshing to watch and really is the only one to satisfy me since the first movie.
Rating: 5/5
Some General Comments
Surprisingly, I didn’t see any repeats of stories. The different movies used different stories pulled from the books or came up with original ones. Christopher Robin is always awkward and has a different voice in each film. Kath Soucie is the best voice for Kanga, it’s a shame she wasn’t in the newest film. The songs are best when sung by the characters or about the scenes themselves (like the ones in the first movie). The trash kid-inspirational ones about best friends and all that nonsense are the worst.
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