The Tigger Movie Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)February 17th, 2000
PLANET SICK-BOY: http://www.sick-boy.com
I’ve never been much of a Tigger fan and, for the life of me, I can’t figure out why some people get so worked up over him. Sure, he looks cuddly, but to me he’s always seemed like a lightweight Daffy Duck knock-off (even though Tigger was around first). I barely wanted to see the film as it was, so imagine my horror when the theatre lights finally go down and the screen lights up with something called “Disney Mambo No. 5,” which is basically a music video featuring fourteen-and-a-half-minutes-into-his-fame Lou Bega.
The animated Tigger actually kicks off with a live-action scene of Christopher Robin’s bedroom. For those of you that don’t know the basics of the whole “Pooh” story, Christopher was the son of creator A.A. Milne, who wrote a series of books in the 1920s that were based on his boy’s stuffed animals plus a couple of real animals that lived in the wooded area near their home. Tigger’s story is basically depicted as one of the books in Christopher’s room and is narrated by some invisible guy that turns the pages of the book as the film progresses.
As viewers are initially submerged into the world of the Hundred-Acre Wood, Tigger appears and sings a song proclaiming that the wonderful thing about Tiggers is that he is the only one. Damn straight, brother – and thank God for that. Tigger is a bouncer, apparently deriving great pleasure from using his tail as a pogo stick and springing all over the place. He tries to get his friends to bounce with him, but they’re all too busy – raspy Pooh is too busy stockpiling pots of hunny and worrywart Piglet seems concerned only for the amount of firewood he has saved for the winter. Only little Roo seems to have the patience to deal with Tigger, who pretty much annoys everyone in the whole Hundred-Acre Wood. As they try to get things done, he bugs them - kind of like a bouncy orange Kramer.
And speaking of Roo, who is his father? The original Pooh books must have been pretty edgy for the ‘20s, portraying Kanga as a single mother way before it was fashionable. She doesn’t look too slutty, and since the characters in these stories are fairly limited, my money would be on the downtrodden Eeyore. It’s always the quiet ones you have to watch out for. And will somebody get Pooh a shirt that will fit over his giant belly? That little red number just doesn’t cut it. He looks like a film critic, for Christ’s sake.
Anyway, the story follows Tigger as he searches for his family during the onset of winter. He wants to track them down to have someone to bounce with – something that I’ve always felt should be accomplished with a person outside of the family. He imagines what his family looks like (shown through paintings inspired by Dali,Warhol, et al.) and he sings songs. A lot of songs. There were at least seven that I was awake for…and the film is only seventy-eight minutes long. Do the math – that’s better than a song every ten minutes, toppling Topsy-Turvy for the championship of the world.
The best scene is probably supposed to be when they all don Tigger costumes to pose as his family, but the whole thing is depicted in the film’s poster, not to mention toy stores that have already begun to sell stuffed Poohs and Piglets wearing Tigger suits. The animation is less that spectacular, but it’s pretty true to the pictures in the Disney books. The voice work is also pretty lackluster, with the performers’ credits reading like a “who’s not” in the animation industry. Most of their previous work is listed as “Additional Voices,” which pretty much amounts to cartoon voice extras.
But, hey – it’s short, the kids will probably dig it and it’s not Pokémon. It could be a lot worse.
1:18 – Rated G and contains no objectionable material
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
