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'Piglet's Big Movie' lacks Disney's typical seal of quality
Winnie the Pooh and Piglet return audiences to the Hundred Acre Wood
Disney
Voices of: John Fiedler, Jim Cummings, Ken Sansom.
MPAA rating: G
Disney cartoons are the safest, if most predictable, brand name out there. I just wish the phenomenal profits earned nowadays from family entertainment hadn't turned the studio into such an indiscriminate purveyor of quantity.
For a while, Disney sent its second-level stuff straight to video -- the sequels, especially. But the company got a message from the healthy multiplex returns for "Return to Never Land," "The Tigger Movie" and "Jungle Book 2," none of which can possibly be mistaken for classic Disney: First theaters, then video.
But the theatrical release of "Piglet's Big Movie" dilutes the (quality) value of the brand name.
It's not junk, mind you. Children from 3 to 7, especially, will watch with at least moderate interest. And if they're discerning, they'll notice it's no "Lady and the Tramp" or "Beauty and the Beast."
Pooh Bear and his pals turned up in three fine 25-minute theatrical shorts that later got repackaged as "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh."
But the path to Pooh Corner is getting worn. "Piglet's Big Movie" is about as minor and as minimally ambitious as a Disney cartoon gets.
As adapted by Brian Hohlfeld and inspired by the A.A. Milne stories, it blows around like a leaf, seeming -- usually for a cartoon feature -- to be narratively adrift. It's certainly episodic.
Rabbit (voiced by Ken Sansom) fiddles with his violin badly in a conspiracy with Winnie the Pooh (Jim Cummings) to separate some bees from their honey-dripping hive.
Piglet (John Fiedler), who needs to be needed, poses as Roo (Nikita Hopkins), offspring of Kanga (Kath Soucie), and gets separated from the gang.
Although moments have identifiable Disney charm and gentility, the film has no momentum. There's little to grab onto.
It's reassuring to find the landscape populated by old favorites such as Tigger (Cummings again), the deadpan donkey Eeyore (Peter Cullen), Owl (Andre Stojka) and even a cameo by Christopher Robin (Tom Wheatley).
There just isn't much unity to their interaction, which makes them tiresome much too soon.
Carly Simon's songs do nothing to enliven the picture, although her onscreen singing over the closing credits provides a little last-minute oomph.
