Winnie the Pooh (2011)

Saturday. 10h30 AM. A theater full of kids. Preview of Disney's "Winnie the Pooh". Sleepy, I wasn't expecting much. This was not the big Disney release of the year, this was a 69 minute film focus solely on appealing to a children's audience. Yet, quite honestly, I WAS BLOWN AWAY. This was an amazing picture. Funny, visually appealing, moral-giver, didactic, and highly entertaining. After an animated short-film, also very compelling for a young audience, about the Loch Ness Monster, the main picture starts. It takes an inventive format, the narrator himself (John Cleese on the original version) interacts with the characters, as they (literary!) jump out of the book, stumbling over the paragraphs and the letters (even using the letters to story purposes). In and out of the storybook, the illustrations come to life in another adventure of the hungry-for-honey cute little bear. Pooh wakes up and is very hungry, but all his jars of honey are empty. He searches in vain for more honey. At the same time, his donkey friend, always blue and down on his feelings, has lost his tale. All the friends decide that whomever finds the tail shall earn a pot of honey. Everyone, the tiger, the pig, the owl, the rabbit and their human friend, young Christopher Robin, go in search of the tail, but none more than Pooh, getting more and more hungry. Then Robin disappears, and leaves a note saying he will be 'back soon', and all the animals think he was kidnapped by a creature named Backson, and hence try to catch him! "Winnie the Pooh" is an incredible simple adventure for children, full of moments to amuse, delight and instruct (most notably on the alphabet and words), catchy songs and the usual notions of friendship and loyalty. The only thing out of place seems to be Pooh's own personality, as he seems only interested in finding something to eat, using the other characters to his own egotistic purposes... Anyway, it was a magical film. Take your kids to it, or go feed the child in yourself. Only Disney can give this, and more than 70 years later, their ability to reach still the very heart of children is mesmerizing. This type of film is what children need growing up, and at least one studio in the world still releases them on the big screen. Hurray for Disney!