Movie Review: Winnie the Pooh
What the hell, Dave? Have you seen everything else and your life is so pathetic that you have to see a kids movie to have something to do and write about???
Well, yes, kind of. Tuesday night is cheap movie night, and I have seen literally everything else playing at Jack London or the Grand Lake. I could head to the Shattuck and see something more independent, but I am still a little bitter about missing 13 Assassins. Also, I was feeling lazy and didn’t want to really drive anywhere.
So, Winnie the Pooh. At the time I bought my ticket I was kind of hoping that I would feel a wash of nostalgia and pleasant childhood memories, but unfortunately five minutes into the film I remembered that even as an appropriately aged child I never had really good feelings for Winnie the Pooh. Too sweet and innocent for me. Of course at that age my dad was taking us to the drive in to see One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and Orca the Killer Whale, so I don’t think I am really a good barometer for movie age appropriateness. After the first five minutes of tripe cuteness I started hoping it would sharpen up to the point where I could call it Winnie Poohter and the Deadly Hollows, but that was not to be.
So I rolled into the theater and was suddenly overwhelmed by the creepiness of being a single grown man with no kids watching a movie for children. I sat as far away from any of the children and tried to look inconspicuous as possible. Fortunately an even creepier crazy cat lady (she looked exactly like the kind of lady who would kidnap a kid out of a shopping cart at Walmart) sat down two seats down from me, so either I wasn’t the creepiest in the theater or at least I was a member of a club. The usher came in several times during the film and gave us both the stink eye, for which I applaud his diligence. (Stranger Have the Best Candy image courtesy of the funny t shirt category)
Anyway, the movie. I am going to forgo my usual stars/black holes rating system, as giving this movie black holes for plot and direction seems unnecessarily harsh and brutal, even for the cold lump of flint that passes for my heart. I will instead talk about my impressions and then as a few questions that occurred to me while watching this flick.
I will say the film was pretty good in it’s intended direction. The children in the audience seemed enraptured when they weren’t screaming, crying, running up and down the aisle, or puking from eating too much popcorn. The film was narrated by the great John Cleese, which was one of the real highlights of the movie. All the characters had English accents, which was very appropriate considering the Hundred Acres Woods is in England.
Pooh wakes up hungry and is out of honey. He tries to mooch off his friends and neighbors (including single mom Kanga and her son Roo) but to no avail. He runs into Eeyore (easily my favorite character) and discovers that Eeyore’s tail is missing. The rest of the gang decide that they would have a contest to see who can find a new tail for Eeyore, with the first prize being a pot of honey. Meanwhile, Christopher Robin (easily the wimpiest kid in literary history. I predict a rough time of it for him in middle school) disappears and the gang thinks he’s been kidnapped by a monster that Owl dreamed up. Anyway, cute stuffed animal hijinks ensues. I don’t want to ruin the plot for you, but there is indeed a happy and heartwarming ending.
Like I said, I am not going to pick this one apart with my stars and black holes. For what it is, it is brilliant. If I were five and not a victim of parental abuse I would probably love it. Parents will feel a deep sense of smug self satisfaction for giving their kids some quality entertainment instead of the usual folderol. I am sure it is softening our kids brains, but at least it has a good look.
However, during the course of the movie a few questions occurred to me. They are pretty bitter and sarcastic, so if you are a massive fan of Winnie the Pooh you should probably stop reading now. If, on the other hand, you have a good answer to any of these feel free to respond here.
First of all, what is the basis of the economy of the Hundred Acre Woods? In Pooh Bears house you see literally hundreds of empty honey pots. Someone had to manufacture all those clay pots, and someone else had to fill them. Every time Winnie the Pooh tries to get his own honey he gets chased by bees all over the place. At the end of the movie Christopher Robin gives him a pot of honey the size of a refrigerator. Where do you go to get something that size? Then, assuming there is a secret honey bottling factory somewhere in the woods, what does Pooh bear actually do for money? He seems to be shockingly lazy and doesn’t really have employment. For that matter, what do the animals of the Hundred Acre Woods use for currency? It would be funny if they called their currency Acres. Seems to be a lot of borrowing going on there.
Second, is honey all Winnie the Pooh really eats? I understand that it is his favorite food, but really it’s not very filling. Furthermore, if that’s all you eat wouldn’t you end up with diabetes pretty fast? For that matter, bears require protein at some point. Shouldn’t Winnie the Pooh be suffering from massive malnourishment?
Is Winnie the Pooh kindhearted and gracious or selfish and narcissistic? Towards the end he passes up on a free pot of honey in order to bring his good friend Eeyore his tail, which is cool, but a half an hour earlier he had talked his apparently developmentally disadvantaged friend Piglet to do some really dangerous stuff in order to get some honey, resulting in Piglet getting his head stuck in a beehive. Winnie then beats on the beehive (with Piglets head stuck inside) and more or less enrages the bees. Sure, he give of himself for his “cool” friend, but treats Piglet like a door mat.
Where exactly is Roo’s father? Is Kanga divorced, or is he in the merchant marines, or what? In my mind I see him living just over the border of the Hundred Acre Woods in the Three Acre Trailer Park with his stripper girlfriend in a single wide. Maybe Kanga secretly sleeps around with every Joey (haw!) that bounces by and doesn’t know who exactly is responsible. I kind of see a deadbeat dad somewhere in here.
Is Winnie the Pooh (and the rest of them, for that matter) a real bear or a stuffed toy? He eats a lot of honey, but at one point the stitching in his belly comes undone and white stuffing comes spilling out kind of graphically (no danger of childhood trauma there, kids). So where does all the honey go? Eeyore’s tail appears to be attached with a nail, and yet he eats thistles.
Does Christopher Robin not have any human friends? Young boy, growing up alone in the woods with only hist stuffed animals and imagination for company? He’s one manifesto away from becoming the Unibomber. Seriously, this kid has home-schooled weirdo written all over him.
Anyway, I’m going to stop there before my house gets torched by an irate gang of grandmothers, librarians, and cute girls who had a Winnie the Pooh stuffed bears as a kid. The movie? Worth taking your kid to, I guess. Not worth going to as a single man with no kids, unless you plan to write an acerbic review. I will say you shouldn’t pay full price for it, as the movie only runs 69 minutes and about 6 of that is taken up by a cartoon short. However, I suspect that is on purpose as most of the kids were pretty restless by the end of the movie. Personally, I counted the shortness as a kindness.
