Review of Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin (1997) by Trevor C — 30 Jul 2011

Of all the Pooh movies, this is by far my favorite. As a child I grew up with Winnie the Pooh and his 'Grand Adventure' proved to be a quite suspenseful one at that. It totally takes you into its world and has this certain maturity to it that I had never seen in any of the other Pooh adventures. As a child who didn't know how to read by the time I saw this film, I totally believed that Christopher Robin was captured or in danger and this Quixotic adventure is brilliantly put together to keep you unsure.

As Pooh's darkest adventure (though still very kid friendly), it, even when I was younger, proved to be a sort of gateway feature into more mature animated films. For example, after I saw this is when I started watching Miyazaki films, which are considerably more emotionally mature (and in some cases not very kid friendly at all). It sort of gave me courage to also stand up for things I wanted to fight for. There are many lessons to be learned from this - one of them being to learn how to read. Also, the imagination behind this film is that of a child's and as such it's an almost perfect cartoon.

For nostalgia purposes this is the sole Pooh adventure I will watch, the rest, though good, never live up to this one. Even the most recent 2011 Winnie the Pooh movie doesn't live up to this one.