DisneyToons review: Pooh’s Heffalump Movie

DisneyToon’s 29th film.

 

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My opinion right after watching the film

My opinion right after watching the film is that I am shocked with how much I liked the film. It was interesting to see them add an actual new element to the franchise, and the story was pretty interesting.

Production

This is the last film to involve John Fielder before he passed away in 2005. This is also the first film that Heffalump made an appearance instead of just a reference or two.

Story

The film starts off with Winnie (Jim Cummings)’s silly self fall into the honey pot by his bed, and, Tigger (Jim Cummings) and Piglet (John Fielder ) freak out over a sound they heard. Everyone then decides to go to Rabbit (Ken Sansom)’s house, and they all see huge footprints. This causes them to think that there is a Heffalump in the Acre Woods. Roo (Nikita Hopkins) does not know what a Heffalump is, and they explain how it is a horrible being. All of them decide to go on a hunt to capture the heffalump, but tells Roo that he is too young to go with them.

It is pretty obvious what is going to happen. I am getting Springtime with Roo flashbacks. Anyways, he goes home, only for his mother Kanga (Kath Soucie) to console and to cheer him up, telling him he is growing up very quickly.

Pooh, Tiger, Rabbit, and Piglet go on their quest the next morning, and fail to find anything. Roo goes on his won quest, and ends up finding a child Heffalump, who is nicknamed Lumpy (Kyle Stagner). Roo tries to capture him, but Lumpy is overly playful, cheering him on that he captured him. The two decide to play for a while, and Lumpy’s mother (Brenda Blethyn) calls out for him, which he ignores. Roo decides to take Lumpy to his area, but Lumpy refuses, since the people over there are scary, and his mother told him to not go over there. Roo tells them that they aren’t scary, though their whole purpose of the day was to capture Heffalumps.

They play a bit more, and Roo wants him to come to the Acre Woods to meet all of his friends. They have fun, but Hffalump is a bit too big, and does not understand the rules of their world to avoid wrecking things all around him. We know this will cause another misunderstanding.

Rabbit, Pooh, etc return to their homes to see everything ruined, so they decide to set up as many traps to capture a Heffalump. The elephant is trying to find and to call out for his mother, but to no avail. Roo ends up singing to him a song that Kanga sang to him, and he decides to take the Heffalump to his mother. This ends up being a horrible idea, since Rabbit, Poo, Tigger, and Piglet ignore the sign that the two children are clearly happy. Lumpy runs into a trap, and is mad that Roo broke his promise of them not being scary. Kanga is eavesdropping, and is proud of her son, who saves the elephant. They capture him with ropes again, and Kanga kindly tells them to shut up, so Roo can finish what he was saying. Roo tells them that Lumpy is like them, but he is too scared, and the both of them fall into a ditch of branches.

Lumpy calls for his mother, who finally shows up, and removes the branches to save Roo. She lectures her son on being late, and looking everywhere for him, saying that they need to go home. Both children ask their mothers to hang out for a few more minutes, and the film ends with the two playing.

I am shocked with how much I really liked this film, and how emotional it got to me. Seeing childhood friendships, and how innocent but strong it is. I really felt for Heffalump and Roo to being misunderstood, and to being minimized doe to being a child. At this point, the franchise needed something new and fresh, and adding the Heffalumps definitely added that fresh feeling. Looking at the chronology of the future DisneyToons films, there is only one more Winnie the Pooh film, and it includes the Heffalumps as well. I think my issue with the previous movies were that it was redundant, tiring, and was phoned in. The story was kind of simple, but it reminded me of the older WDAS films, relying more so on symbolics, emotion, and subtlety. This may be my favourite film of the canon.

Characters

I am going to keep this relatively short. All of the other characters are the same, though Kanga got a bit more screentime, since she is used as an example of a strong link between mother and father. This is the second film where Roo takes more action, and it is nice to see two children interacting and having fun. I feel like Lumpy is a strong addition to the franchise, since he is relatively fun, but clumsy and misunderstood. I have not noticed that Christopher has been missing for the last 4-5 films, and I also wonder if maybe that is why the others were lacking.

Animation

We are long out of the era of DisneyToons, where they could not afford to have good animation. I honestly have nothing to complain about regarding the animation of the film. It was nice to look at, and it captured the world of Winnie the Pooh perfectly.

Music

The few songs that are in the film give off that innocent nature, since it is about childhood relationships, and there is a song which is about mothers. I like how the score is quieter, and more relaxed. Not that memorable, but it does the job fine.

Reception at Release

When the film was released on February 11th, 2005, it made $18,098,433 in North America, and $34,760,000 internationally, with an overall gross of $52,858,433. The reception was generally positive. It was able to garner a sequel, which was released later that year.

Reception Today

The reception today is that it is one of the better Winnie the Pooh films, though it is not the most well-known.

Final Score

Story: 8/10

Characters: 7/10

Animation 7.5/10

Music: 7/10

29.5/40 = 74%

Next time…

Review: February 14th, 2016.

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