Editors Note: For a full review of The Tigger Movie itself see this article.
For the characters in the Hundred Acre Wood things are not always easy, things ought to be, but the foolish creatures have a habit of complicating them. Of course, they have a habit of taking complicated things and making them easy, too (but not always in smart ways).
Today's case in point is The Tigger Movie. This T-I-double guh-rrrrr-centered film focuses on the one and only Tigger who is upset because he is just that – the one and only Tigger. That is right, The Tigger Movie features the kind of, sort of, almost lovable guy (it really depends on if you're Rabbit or not) on a quest to find his family.
He is helped on this journey by his Hundred Acre Wood family, a family which our hero eventually works out is just as good a family as he could possibly want. They need not look like him nor act like him, but they are his family because they are the ones who are always there for him and (as they've proven here) would do anything for him.
It actually could be kind of weighty material for a Pooh story, but it's handled with enough levity and Pooh-filled naïveté that it works. Some of the material present—as stated in the DVD review of the 10th anniversary edition—does feel a little old, but depending on where you stand that may be an advantage.
One of the nice things about the Pooh characters is that they are so child-like that they can do the same things repeatedly and never quite remember that they've been down the road before. It doesn't matter how many times the bees chase Pooh, the bear is going to go for the honey. It doesn't matter how many times Rabbit expresses his displeasure at being bounced, Tigger is going to bounce him. And, if it's done the right way (and more often than not The Tigger Movie is), it isn't going to matter to the audience that it's happened before – it remains amusing. If Dennis the Menace could keep frustrating Mr. Wilson, there seems to be no reason that Eeyore's home can't be destroyed every five minutes.
That all being said, given the choice, I would regularly choose to watch The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh or Winnie the Pooh (the recent franchise reboot) over The Tigger Movie. I think both those movies gel in slightly better fashion than this one. Why? Well, because to me, while Tigger can (and should) have a story in Pooh tales, Tigger stories are probably better relegated to a B-plot or shorter piece rather than the A-plot of a full-length feature.
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