Winnie The Pooh

From the worst of the week, here is the first of the week's two best films.  And, yes, it's not much longer than a capsule review but that's what happens when you have seven films coming out in a week.

From Channel24 (Originally posted 12 May 2011)



What it's about

Winnie The Pooh is back with a very traditional hand-drawn animated film. This time Pooh is on his usual search for some honey but it's not long before he and the other residents of the 100 Acre Wood find themselves looking for a replacement for Eeyore's lost tail and for Christopher Robin who they mistakenly believe has been kidnapped.

What we thought

This, the latest in a long line of screen adaptations of AA Milne's classic Winnie The Pooh books, may be a bit too inconsequential and lightweight to go down as a true classic but it's a massively charming, old-fashioned little film that is sure to delight young children and their parents alike.

Without needing to fall back on post-modern, pop-culture references, Winnie The Pooh's humour feels both more timeless and far more gentle than most of today's kids fare and it's flat out funnier to boot. On the other hand, though this version of Winnie The Pooh deserves the criticisms it has received for not having the same melancholic attitude towards growing up that the best of Pooh (middle name “The”, of course) is known for, it's still massively sweet without being overly saccharine and is child-like rather than childish. It's also wonderfully bonkers as only Winnie The Pooh can be.

It's no classic but between its beautiful animation (its, if you excuse the pun, novel use of storybook storytelling is especially terrific), solid voice-acting, good jokes and oodles of charm – all over the span of a very snappy 69 minutes, including a wonderful short that precedes the main feature – Winnie The Pooh is a great film to take the kids to and one that you may well enjoy just as much yourself. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Oppenheimer

Image
The other half of the Barbeheimer phenomenon, Oppenheimer, hasn't been quite as controversial as Barbie, but it has still drawn some controversy. Not controversy about the morality of atomic warfare, of course, but about Florence Pugh's nude scenes. Because that's the world we're living in, I guess. But I begin with a digression. Much like Barbie, there's probably not a ton to be said about Oppenheimer at this point, except to say that it's every bit as good as people are saying. Still, I'm going to take a run at it. What stands out most about Oppenheimer is how much it's both very much a Christopher Nolan film and quite a radical departure for him. Yes, loads of the old Nolan tropes are present and accounted for: multiple timelines, an epic scope, trouble writing female characters, practical effects shot on IMAX cameras, a booming and intentionally over-stuffed soundtrack, and of course, Cillian Murphy, finally taking centre stage.  On the other hand, i
Read more

Barbie

Image
At this point, is there anything more to be said about either part of Barbenheimer? Probably not, but that hasn't stopped people from continuing to weigh in on both films.  Just yesterday, Bill Maher was trending on I'm-not-calling-it-X-Twitter (yet again) for saying how much he disliked the film for being both preachy and presenting a militant feminist view of the world that doesn't actually exist anymore. Whatever. Bill is just being Bill, as usual. He manages to be both right and completely misses the point at the same time.  Barbie does indeed show a greatly exaggerated view of the world that represents a male-female power dynamic that is at least 10, if not 30 years old. It's also true that Gerwig is not afraid to hit us over the head with its anti-patriarchy messaging.  But what Bill misses - and what dumbasses like Ben Shapiro, who went on to have an embarrassing 45-minute hissy fit about a freakin' Barbie movie, certainly miss - is that a) it's a satire,
Read more

Godzilla Minus One

Image
Godzilla Minus One has been out for weeks in South Africa and even longer elsewhere, but I only just saw it yesterday and I simply had to share a few quick thoughts on it. For context, I've seen a few of the American Godzilla movies, but I've always felt like I should enjoy Godzilla, and Kaiju (giant monster) movies in general, more than I actually do. I have no real connection with these movies and may well have skipped right past Godzilla Minus One as I wasn't asked to review it by my editor at News 24 were it not for the exceptionally good reviews and enthusiastic word-of-mouth. And let me tell you, the glowing reception to the film could not be more deserved: I was blown away by this truly brilliant film. I may not be a major fan of the approximately seven million Godzilla films that have come out since 1954, but even I know that a large part of what made the original Japanese version of the film such a hit was that it was about a giant lizard monster rampaging through
Read more