In the famous Hundred Acre Wood, Christopher Robin (Brady Bluhm) regularly visits his best friend, the sweet, honey-loving bear Pooh (Jim Cummings). However, one day after Christopher sadly talks about “saying goodbye,” Pooh finds a note left by his friend on his door, and takes that note to his intelligent friend, Owl, voiced by Andre Stojka. The smart but mistaken Owl misunderstands the honey-covered message as a cry for help saying that Christopher Robin is being held captive in a scary place known as “Skull.”
Owl gathers a search party led by Pooh and his other friends Piglet (John Fiedler), Tigger (Paul Winchell), Rabbit (Ken Sansom) and Eeyore (Peter Cullen). Owl decides to not include himself in what he says will be a dangerous search but gives the team a map to “Skull.” The scary path takes them into an ancient area, and Piglet gets really scared of his traditional boogeyman, the heffalumps and woozles, and this one also include a new scary creature, the fearsome “Skullasaurus.”
The characters literally get scared of their own shadows as they journey through vast canyons, furious rivers and horrifying forests. Even after they lose the map, they stay the course to get to “Skull,” a large crystal cave. There, Pooh actually finds Christopher Robin, who is actually safe. The boy had left the note saying he’d be at a new place called “school.” TV Guide said in their review, “"Skull" is seen to be simply an odd-shaped heap of stones. Other scary landmarks of the journey, no longer magnified by fear, recur as ordinary creeks and thickets, as Christopher Robin leads his friends back to their homes.”
TV Guide went on to say, “It's an index of Disney's success with A.A. Milne's storybooks that Winnie the Pooh's cartoon popularity rests on a mere four short subjects, premiered irregularly on television since 1966 (and packaged into a 1977 theatrical omnibus THE MANY ADVENTURES OF WINNIE THE POOH). In fact, POOH'S GRAND ADVENTURE could have done better as a short itself; even at 75 minutes, the slight story material seems overly padded. Generally, Disney writers have avoided tampering with essential settings and characters, and the most jarring moments here are those hinting at an outside universe, from Owl in an Uncle Sam recruiting-poster pose, to the JURASSIC PARK influence of the imaginary "Skullasaurus." Such pop-culture icons seem distinctly alien to the timeless bedtime-story milieu of the Hundred Acre Wood. Suitably, Pooh's "Grand Adventure" is hardly grand or a real adventure, though (despite chronic bumbling) Pooh, Piglet and the rest prove their courage and loyalty simply by following through. For the benefit of young viewers, there's also a canned moral about Rabbit believing Owl's faulty map no matter what, singing, "Trust not what you think/'til it's printed in ink."”
Usually the songs (by husband-and-wife Michael Abbott and Sarah Weeks) are forgettable, but the fine animation shows a lot of work beyond the Disney Channel’s previous two cartoon series from the same production team. TV Guide ended their review by saying, “Of the talented vocal cast, John Fiedler and ventriloquist-turned-surgeon Paul Winchell have been with the cartoons since their inception.”
Despite what people might say about this movie, I actually enjoyed it as a child. I saw it a lot in my childhood after we bought it and I would recommend every Pooh movie out there for all of the Pooh fans. You should see this one and get a good feeling after watching this film, and having some laughs along the way. My recommendation to everyone is if you’re a Pooh fan, don’t skip over this one.
There are other Pooh movies that I will look at over the next few days in “Disney Month 2020.”
No comments:
Post a Comment