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The latest Winnie the Pooh movie opens in theaters Friday — appealing to a different audience than those who will flock to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. Here is what critics are saying about Walt Disney Animated Films’ latest adaptation of A.A. Milne’s famed stories.
Writes Todd McCarthy in The Hollywood Reporter, “So definitive are the soft, simple, pastel evocations of the English countryside in E.H. Shepard’s original Pooh illustrations that revisionist versions would be unthinkable. Directors Stephen J. Anderson and Don Hall (director and a writer, respectively, on Meet the Robinsons) do nothing to rock the boat, delivering rich, beautifully rendered visual backdrops for the mild antics of the familiar characters.”
“Little kids will enjoy the gentle, lovingly wrought, for-tots-and-parents-only resuscitation of A.A. Milne’s characters, while parents will be thankful for the 69-minute running time,” he adds.
A.O. Scott in the New York Times writes, “It may be easiest to describe Winnie the Pooh, an ever so slight, entirely charming new Disney animated feature, by saying what it is not. It is not Cars 2. It’s not loud and not in 3-D. It has no attention-grabbing celebrity voice work, and the only pop-cultural allusions it makes are to other stories and films about Pooh and his friends. Which is not to say that the movie is obnoxiously self-referential, but rather that it is comfortable with itself and confident in its ability to amuse and beguile young viewers.”
“Winnie the Pooh may not be a movie that grown-ups seek out on their own, but it may make some of them jealous of the 4-year-olds who are making the noble bear’s acquaintance for the first time,” he adds.
Cath Clarke of the U.K. Guardian rates the film three out of five stars and calls it a “gentle, modest pleasure.”
“The comeback of old-style hand-drawing at Disney under the watchful eye of Pixar’s John Lasseter continues with a snuggly Winnie the Pooh, touchingly faithful to Walt’s original 1960s cartoons as much as AA Milne’s stories. Disney’s animators have upped the antics-quota fractionally, but this is as fond an amble as you’d expect,” she says.
Matt Goldberg of Collider.com gives the movie a B+.
“I’m still astonished that Winnie the Pooh doesn’t feel stale,” he writes.
“This is the first real G-rated movie to come along in a while and it’s comforting to see a movie that doesn’t need a fart joke to make kids laugh. The movie also doesn’t overstay its welcome and comes in at slightly under 70 minutes long. It’s a smart move because you can really only have Pooh whining for so long about how he wants honey,” Goldberg goes on.
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