Winnie the Pooh: Springtime With Roo
Year: 2004
Director: Elliot M. Bour & Saul Andrew Blinkoff
Starring: Jimmy Bennett, Peter Cullen, Jim Cummings, John Fielder & Ken Sansom
Runtime: 65 mins
BBFC: U
Published: 27/06/22
Director: Elliot M. Bour & Saul Andrew Blinkoff
Starring: Jimmy Bennett, Peter Cullen, Jim Cummings, John Fielder & Ken Sansom
Runtime: 65 mins
BBFC: U
Published: 27/06/22
In the early 2000’s there were no less than five Winnie the Pooh films created by Walt Disney Television Animation and DisneyToon studios. I’ve covered three of them so far (The Tigger Movie, A Very Merry Pooh Year, and Piglets Big Movie) but still have two to go. So, who would be the next character from the Hundred Acre Wood to receive their own film? Well for a springtime film it seems only right for it to be someone with a spring in their step.
Spring has well and truly sprung in the Hundred Acre Wood and Roo (Jimmy Bennett) is excited for the annual Easter egg hunt hosted by Rabbit (Ken Sansom). But when Roo, Piglet (John Fielder), Eeyore (Peter Cullen), Pooh and Tigger (both Jim Cummings) arrive at Rabbit’s they find that no Easter celebrations have been planned and they are instead expected to help Rabbit give his house a spring clean. Disheartened, the friends plan to surprise Rabbit by decorating his home for Easter, but when he discovers it, Rabbit declares Easter cancelled and tells everyone to go away. Determined not to let Roo’s Easter be ruined, Tigger tries to convince Rabbit to give Easter another shot.
Spring has well and truly sprung in the Hundred Acre Wood and Roo (Jimmy Bennett) is excited for the annual Easter egg hunt hosted by Rabbit (Ken Sansom). But when Roo, Piglet (John Fielder), Eeyore (Peter Cullen), Pooh and Tigger (both Jim Cummings) arrive at Rabbit’s they find that no Easter celebrations have been planned and they are instead expected to help Rabbit give his house a spring clean. Disheartened, the friends plan to surprise Rabbit by decorating his home for Easter, but when he discovers it, Rabbit declares Easter cancelled and tells everyone to go away. Determined not to let Roo’s Easter be ruined, Tigger tries to convince Rabbit to give Easter another shot.
Springtime With Roo is not based on any of A.A. Milne’s stories, but it is also not an entirely original Disney creation. Instead, and quite puzzlingly, it’s a Winnie the Pooh themed adaptation of Charles Dickins’ A Christmas Carol altered to fit around Easter. This is the Achilles heel of the entire film, and unfortunately because it’s the foundation that holds everything else up the film is rather flimsy as a result. Firstly, why would you adapt A Christmas Carol into Winnie the Pooh? Why not draw on one of Milne’s many unadapted stories, or just make up something entirely original? Why go through the effort of translating a different authors work into Winnie the Pooh? To add insult to injury, it’s not a very good adaptation. Adaptations of A Christmas Carol are a dime a dozen so to be memorable and standout you need to do something interesting with the property. Looking at Disney adaptations of the story, something like A Muppets Christmas Carol or the 2009 ‘A Christmas Carol 3D’ stand out because they do something unique with the property. Springtime With Roo attempts to do something unique with it, by changing Christmas to Easter and then basing it in the Hundred Acre Wood, but it doesn’t work because so many elements of the story have changed to accommodate this shift.
Rabbit has always been a character that’s difficult to like but easy to love. He means well but has a funny way of showing it sometimes. In Springtime With Roo though, he’s just a straight up meanie. He parades around the Hundred Acre Wood like a dictator expecting everybody else to do his housework for him, and then when people express the desire to go out and have fun he screams at them and tells them he never wants to see them again. This is probably the biggest element of Springtime With Roo that doesn’t work because Rabbit isn’t a villain in the same way Scrooge is. Scrooge is a genuinely nasty man who has a change of heart when he realises the hurt he is causing. Rabbit just likes things done his way, which in the Winnie the Pooh storylines is often used against him, but never to this extent and he’s never this mean about it.
Rabbit has always been a character that’s difficult to like but easy to love. He means well but has a funny way of showing it sometimes. In Springtime With Roo though, he’s just a straight up meanie. He parades around the Hundred Acre Wood like a dictator expecting everybody else to do his housework for him, and then when people express the desire to go out and have fun he screams at them and tells them he never wants to see them again. This is probably the biggest element of Springtime With Roo that doesn’t work because Rabbit isn’t a villain in the same way Scrooge is. Scrooge is a genuinely nasty man who has a change of heart when he realises the hurt he is causing. Rabbit just likes things done his way, which in the Winnie the Pooh storylines is often used against him, but never to this extent and he’s never this mean about it.
Aesthetically the film isn’t as good as The Tigger Movie or Piglet’s Big Movie, adopting a lower budget animation style, but it is a step up from A Very Merry Pooh Year. The result is detailed and smooth animation that just lacks the bigger budget pop. Springtime With Roo also breaks the fourth wall multiple times with the characters being very much aware of the fact that they live in a storybook, and do frequently escape the pages or use the text from the page around them in interesting ways. I remember reviewing 2011’s Winnie the Pooh for the Animated Classics collection and saying how impressed I was with it there, with little knowledge that Springtime With Roo did it first, and in some ways better than that film did.
Springtime With Roo does include some underwhelming musical numbers though which drag the presentation quality of it all down somewhat significantly. They’re not bad as such, but they just don’t need to be there, and the film would have been stronger without them.
Springtime With Roo is a film I won’t remember much of in a few days. The story is a poor adaptation of A Christmas Carol and the way it villainises Rabbit rubbed me the wrong way. Though it’s certainly got some interesting use of fourth wall breaking trickery which for a straight to DVD film I’m quite impressed with. Ultimately though, Springtime With Roo is one of the weaker Winnie the Pooh films Disney have ever produced.
Springtime With Roo does include some underwhelming musical numbers though which drag the presentation quality of it all down somewhat significantly. They’re not bad as such, but they just don’t need to be there, and the film would have been stronger without them.
Springtime With Roo is a film I won’t remember much of in a few days. The story is a poor adaptation of A Christmas Carol and the way it villainises Rabbit rubbed me the wrong way. Though it’s certainly got some interesting use of fourth wall breaking trickery which for a straight to DVD film I’m quite impressed with. Ultimately though, Springtime With Roo is one of the weaker Winnie the Pooh films Disney have ever produced.