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Movies & TV Movies & TV Reviews

Winnie The Pooh

WINNIE THE POOH (Stephen J. Anderson, Don Hall). 73 minutes. Opens Friday (July 15). See listing. Rating: NNNN


The children’s books of A.A. Milne occupy a special place in my cold, cynical heart, so I admit it – I went into the new Winnie The Pooh movie expecting to be disappointed.

Instead, I was delighted. The film works as a lovely update of Disney’s 1977 feature The Many Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh, adding a tender undercurrent of nostalgia for the adults in the audience, subtly encouraging us to remember how it felt to discover Milne’s stories for the first time.

The new cast is impeccable. Jim Cummings does his best approximations of Sterling Holloway and Paul Winchell as Pooh and Tigger, respectively. Craig Ferguson gives the supercilious Owl a brittle edge, and Pixar animator Bud Luckey channels a particularly weary Scott Glenn as Eeyore. And whoever snagged John Cleese for the narration deserves a promotion.

Stephen J. Anderson and Don Hall’s defiantly hand-drawn production finds a way to honour the delicacy and sweetness at the heart of Milne’s text while subtly bringing the characters into a contemporary plane. I never thought I’d see a Pooh movie that addresses Eeyore’s depressive tendencies head-on, but this one does, and it’s hysterical.

The only real misstep was picking Zooey Deschanel to sing the songs. Her grinning-on-Zoloft delivery made my teeth ache. Just plug your ears when she starts up.

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