Winnie the Pooh [DVD]

A beautifully crafted animated film, Winnie The Pooh may lack the digital polish of computer generated movies, but there’s a labour of love here that’s hard to resist. It’s a hand-drawn movie, that brings to the screen a fresh adventure from the Hundred Acre Wood. Present and correct are the characters that have made the stories of Winnie The Pooh so beloved over the years. And there’s a wonderful, nostalgic feel to the film.

But that’s not to say it doesn’t have some modern tricks up its sleeve, too. As well as the addition of a contemporary voice cast, this Winnie The Pooh feature is willing to have the characters interact with the very words and letters of the story it’s telling. Furthermore, there’s one sequence which feels really quite removed from what you’d expect of a Pooh movie.

Yet that’s not a bad thing, and it’s hard to shake the feeling that Disney is justifiably proud of this one. Winnie The Pooh has been far from the firm’s most popular films of recent times, but it’s genuinely lovely. It’s inevitably going to find most appeal amongst very young viewers, but even the older members of the audience can enjoy what’s been put together. And they might just end up feeling that they really do still make them like they used to. A real treat. --Jon Foster