It was true of The Tigger Movie and it seems to be equally true of Pooh’s Heffalump Halloween Movie: the new Pooh adventures are just rehashes of classic Hundred Acre Wood stories. The Tigger Movie imitated Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too while the Heffalump story is easily likened to Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, the 1968 short that shared the themes of courage and facing your fears. What Blustery Day got right is that it reined in its runtime to a mere 25 minutes whereas Pooh’s Heffalump Halloween Movie stretches itself thin over 66 minutes – and man is it a stretch.
Everything is all set and it seems like this just might be the best Halloween ever for the inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Wood. All the costumes are ready (except for Gopher who’s oddly indecisive in this film – but he still whistles when he talks, so we forgive him). All the candy has been gathered from all corners of the forest. How could the night get anymore perfect? Roo’s friend Lumpy the Heffalump has come for the night’s celebration of tricking and treating. Yessir, the night couldn’t get any better.
Until Pooh eats all the candy.
Now, we’ve forgiven him time and time again in the past for eating everyone’s honey, for angering the bees so he can eat their honey and for angering the weather gods by dressing as a cloud to trick the bees so, alas, he can once again steal their honey. The man’s an addict. He has issues. Yet, everyone’s surprised when Pooh starts jonesing for his fix and discovers that while not a perfect substitute, candy has just the right amount of sugar to stave off the inevitable withdrawal. So the candy’s gone. What’s a forest full of Halloween-hyped critters to do? They can’t just go gather more because Rabbit, in his perfectionist way, had gathered each and every last piece and then left it in front of Pooh bear. How can someone be so detail-oriented one moment and then just forget during a musical number that he’s left the candy next to the forest’s most infamous glutton?
Anyways, in a display of bravery, Roo and the unfortunately named Lumpy set off into the woods to find and capture the Gobloon, a creature Tigger told them would grant them a wish upon its imprisonment. But halfway there Lumpy remembers he’s got bravery issues. Mainly, he doesn’t have any. Roo, being the overly ambitious youth that he is coaxes Lumpy onwards with promises of camaraderie in the form of a few songs. When they reach the Gobloon’s lair, Lumpy has a full-fledged breakdown and Roo has to tell him the story of Piglet’s cowardice only a year before when he ruined everyone’s Halloween by making it a “Hallowasn’t”. Well, the story gets Lumpy all rearin’ to go once again – but then Lumpy goes and gets captured by the Gobloon (a.k.a. stuck inside a tree, an impressive feat considering he’s pretty much a baby elephant). Roo runs back home and tells his tale to the grown-ups.
It’s a story within a story, and the one that carries any real weight is the one that almost rehashes Blustery Day’s story verbatim. Instead of the wind, Piglet is now afraid of people in costumes and the dark. Instead of a pinwheel saving the day it’s now a large mechano-man created by Piglet himself. The surrounding story of Roo and Lumpy serves as little more than book-ends to the story that should have been fleshed out. But even then, had that been the story they’d decided to stick with, why not just expand upon Blustery Day and make it into a similarly long 66-minute opus? The Halloween theme makes it nice fodder for Halloween night (or the night before if you need to convince your kid not to be afraid) but in the end it’s clear the premise is little more than a ruse to put a Pooh movie on the shelf for the Halloween season.
Either way your kids will enjoy it, but I’d actually recommend picking up a copy of Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day instead – only Disney hasn’t seen fit to release it on DVD yet. So buy this for now, but when they release Blustery Day on DVD, promise yourself you’ll buy that and chuck this one out the window.
Save for one character, the voice acting in the Heffalump Halloween Movie has all the classic moderation you’ve come to expect from the Pooh legacy. That one is Lumpy. Voiced as an annoying little British child, Lumpy may just make you wish poachers were roaming about the Hundred Acre Wood. Sure, he might not have tusks for them to harvest, but at least Lumpy wood make a nice child-sized heffalump hide ottoman. And what kid doesn’t like an ottoman? While a newcomer has stepped in to play Roo, he’s nowhere near as annoying as a kid voicing another kid would make you think. Otherwise, rest comfortably knowing that Peter Cullen, Jim Cummings, John Fiedler, Ken Sansom and Kath Soucie still have jobs in the Winnieverse.
DVD Bonus Features
The DVD comes equipped with a few Halloween and Winnie the Pooh themed takes on classic children’s party games like musical chairs and Bingo. So if you like the idea of having a DVD player instructing your children and running their games – you’re in luck. If you slip the DVD into your computer there are a few digital resources like themed invitations and crafts for you to print out to complete the experience. And while these are all well and good, that’s not going to be what makes your 5-year-old child clamor at the shopping cart for you to buy it. The moneymaker in the packaging is the little Winnie the Pooh plush dressed up like Tigger that will force you to buy it or break their hearts. It’s a dirty trick, but it is a nice little stuffed animal, for what it’s worth.
"Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie" is on sale September 1, 2009 and is rated G. Adventure, Animation, Children & Family, Musical. Directed by Elliot M Bour, Saul Blinkoff. Written by A.A. Milne (characters), Brian Hohlfeld & Evan Spiliotopoulos. Starring Jim Cummings, John Fiedler, Ken Sansom, Peter Cullen, Jimmy Bennett, Kath Soucie, Kyle Stanger.
