" Winnie the Pooh' is magical for young kids "

Even if they are filled with honey.

With Harry Potter casting his final spell over theaters this weekend, Winnie is the only star willing to challenge the boy wizard. Normally you'd find at least a romantic comedy to counterprogram a cinematic colossus.

Pooh stands alone. And while his movie doesn't stand a chance at the box office, Pooh succeeds by embracing much of what modern films (including Potter's) have largely forgotten: old-fashioned movie pleasures.

•Like simplicity. Harry Potter, for instance, is fighting for his life, his friends and fate of the human world.

Pooh is looking for Eeyore's tail.

About the movie

Winnie the Pooh
* * * out of four

Stars: Jim Cummings, Tom Kenny,
Bud Luckey, Craig Ferguson
Directors: Stephen Anderson
and Don Hall
Distributor: Walt Disney
Rating: G
Running time: 1 hour, 8 minutes
Opens Friday nationwide

•Like coloring-book images. The Potter film is a visual
spectacle, a fitting 3-D bon voyage meant to set the franchise's already high visual watermarks.

Pooh is unabashedly 2-D, a proud cartoon of primary colors. While so much animation looks to make its world and inhabitants photo-real, Pooh still looks much like the bear from 1926, when author A.A. Milne began his fantasy storybooks based on his son Christopher Robin's stuffed toy.

To the movie's credit, Pooh does little to change its character or its meandering stories. This isn't Hollywood's How the Grinch Stole Christmas or Cat in the Hat— commercial bastardizations that have distilled the originals.

Not here. Pooh and pals don't live in a real world: They live in a book, chat with the narrator, hop from page to page, build ladders out of discarded letters to search for that tail (taken innocently, of course).

At just 68 minutes, Pooh is much in the frolicking spirit of the original Seuss stories and Schoolhouse Rock.

Not that Pooh hasn't modernized some. It may be rated G, but the film has some wonderful humor and animation, particularly when Pooh is flummoxed. Speaking of the titular character, Pooh is voiced by Jim Cummings, a near pitch-perfect replacement for the late Sterling Holloway.

Make no mistake: The movie is for younger children. Any kid over 8 is likely going to have hat and wand by the car keys for the Potter matinee.

But for parents not in the mood for lines and computer-generated spectacle, this wonderfully playful film may have enough magic of its own.

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