Tale of Friendship Gives ‘Tigger Movie’ Some Bounce

Disney’s new animated feature “The Tigger Movie” is a brightly colored, upbeat entertainment that will please small children, its obvious target audience. Parents and older siblings, however, may grow impatient with the uneven execution that weakens the genuine charm the film sporadically exhibits.

Tigger, the energetic tiger from the Winnie the Pooh series who’s spent decades proclaiming “the most wonderful thing about tiggers is I’m the only one,” suddenly feels lonely. No one wants to go bouncing with him, except Roo; the other animals are tired of him breaking everything he touches.

Wishing he had a family who shared his tastes quickly turns into believing he has one, and his search for them leads to predictable disappointments and mishaps. Tigger learns the very contemporary lesson that a family is something you assemble from the people who love you, rather than a group you happen to be born into.

Director-screenwriter Jun Falkenstein and story author Eddie Guzelian make the mistake of pitting mild, familiar characters against a danger that is both inappropriate and too big for them--a fault that also weakened the recent “Pokemon” movie. For example, Tigger’s yelling triggers an avalanche that threatens to sweep the entire cast over a precipice. Tigger may break furniture and annoy his friends with his rambunctious antics, but he doesn’t put their lives at risk. And what’s a precipice doing in the gentle English countryside of the Hundred Acre Wood?

The animation was done in Japan by the studio that produces many Disney TV shows. Pooh, Eeyore, Tigger and Roo generally look and act as they should, but Owl, Rabbit and Kanga look misproportioned and move stiffly. Animation this limited needs strong poses and careful staging to make the characters’ thoughts and actions read clearly, and the artists don’t always find them. Falkenstein relies too heavily on close-ups, which becomes a problem when Roo cries: The animators simply can’t draw the expressions convincingly.

As Pooh, voice actor Jim Cummings comes close to re-creating Sterling Holloway’s beloved interpretation from the ‘60s animated shorts, but he fails to capture the affectionate little growls Paul Winchell gave Tigger. In his zanier moments, Tigger sounds like Buddy Hackett with a lisp. Peter Cullen is properly dour as Eeyore; the rest of the cast is adequate, if unremarkable.

Art director Toby Bluth does an exceptional job of capturing the distinctive ink lines and watercolor washes of E.H. Shepard’s illustrations for the A.A. Milne books. Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman, who crafted the songs for “The Jungle Book” and “Mary Poppins,” have written six new tunes--their first for Disney in nearly 30 years. “Round My Family Tree,” the inevitable upbeat production number, overflows with bright graphics and references to old films and television programs that will probably go over kids’ heads. How many 6-year-olds remember Marilyn Monroe in “The Seven Year Itch”? The most effective number in the score is “Pooh’s Lullabee,” the charming song the Silly Old Bear uses to soothe a hive of bees who’ve caught him stealing honey.

“The Tigger Movie” looks and sounds better than the pedestrian “Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore” (1983), but no one would mistake it for one of the Oscar-winning featurettes made by Disney’s star animators during the ‘60s. Its shortcomings are unlikely to bother young children, who only know the characters from the limited animation of the popular TV series, specials and last year’s direct-to-video feature “Winnie the Pooh: The Seasons of Giving.”

* MPAA rating: G. Times guidelines: A few scenes of an avalanche may frighten very small children.

‘The Tigger Movie’

Voices

Jim Cummings: Tigger, Winnie the Pooh

Nikita Hopkins: Roo

Ken Sansom: Rabbit

John Fiedler: Piglet

Peter Cullen: Eeyore

Andre Stojka: Owl

Kath Soucie: Kanga

Tom Attenborough: Christopher Robin

John Hurt: Narrator

Released by Walt Disney Pictures. Director Jun Falkenstein. Producer Cheryl Abood. Story Eddie Guzelian. Screenplay Jun Falkenstein. Based on characters created by A.A. Milne. Music Harry Gregson-Williams. Songs Richard M. Sherman, Robert B. Sherman. Art director Toby Bluth. Running time: 1 hour, 16 minutes.

In general release.