Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman April 17, 2020

There are few fictional relationships as sincere and tender as that shared between Christopher Robin and his best friend Winnie the Pooh. A. A. Milne's characters, in various content delivery formats, have delighted audiences for decades, including on the big and small screens. Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin is the first direct to video film for the franchise. In it, the characters face separation anxiety and the animals undertake a perilous adventure due to misinterpretation and misinformation. It's a simple tale, tender and sweet at its center, but a bit more grown up in exploration of themes that run the gamut from love to loss and from joy to fear.

On the last day of a Golden Summer, Christopher Robin (voiced by Brady Bluhm) and Winnie the Pooh (voiced by Jim Cummings) adventure together on the Hundred Acre Wood. They did everything they could imagine together, that day and every day before; they are inseparable friends that nothing could ever tear apart. But at the end of that very day Christoper breaks the bad news to his best friend that they may not be able to be together forever in person but that they will always be together in spirit. The next day, a hungry Pooh finds a bottle of honey but misses the note affixed to it. When he finally takes notice of it, it’s slathered in the tasty treat and none of his friends can interpret the ruined writing. He finally gives it to Owl (voiced by Andre Stojka) who can read most of it but misinterprets the word “school” for “skull” and leads Pooh, along with friends Piglet (voiced by John Fiedler), Eyeore (voiced by Peter Cullen), Tigger (voiced by Paul Winchell), and Rabbit (voiced by Ken Sansom), out on an adventure to find Christopher in the darkest corners of Hundred Acre Woods.

Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin hits sweet and tender notes in its opening minutes, capturing the very essence of Christopher Robin's relationship with Winnie the Pooh. The adventuresome middle stretch is a delight, if not a little slow at times, and as the story themes come into focus in the midst of the characters' self doubts and external fears, it finds a purpose in its well balanced approach that blends silliness with sincerity along with some high point musical numbers. The voice work is excellent as always and the animation never disappoints.

Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin journeys onto Blu-ray with a healthy and proficient 1080p transfer. The only real downside is the occasional appearance of edge halos, but these rarely amount to any distracting levels of intensity. Overall, the image pleases, maintaining a very fine grain structure and offering stout, clearly defined animated details with firm line structure and excellent clarity to both static backgrounds and motion characters alike. Definition soars throughout and across varied environments, from idyllic natural exteriors seen early in the film to rocky cavern interiors seen late in the film. The pastel tones are brilliant, offering rich natural greenery; gorgeous blue skies; and an assortment of brown stones, tree bark, and terrain in the opening segment. As the adventure continues and particularly in that cavern towards the end, the palette responds to any challenge given to it, finding rich tonal accuracy and natural contrast with color highlights including, predominantly, the animals. The picture quality holds excellence for the duration; fans are going to be well pleased with Disney's work on this one.

Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Following a modest upward volume adjustment from calibrated reference norms, Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack delivers a fine quality listen. The track is very well balanced and offers a surprising amount of sound element range and surround integration throughout. One of the first-best moments comes during a burst of low end extension when Tigger falls in chapter six, followed by a deep, driving sound of acorns tumbling from above and striking the ground like miniature bombs. The track further integrates some fun discrete surround effects as characters literally run around the stage in chapter nine, trekking through the rear speakers and back around to the front for several easily identifiable laps. It's probably the single most expressive and fun moment the track has on offer. As the action shifts inside a cave in the final act, listeners will find some fine reverb and other spacial effects in chapter 15 that do wonders to bring the location to life. For the duration, music is lively and healthy in clarity, with ample front side spread and well defined lyrical support. General dialogue is clear and well prioritized as it emanates from the proper front center speaker position. Listeners may very well be surprised by not only the track's general excellence but the ample range of enjoyable elements in play throughout the film. It's a blast of a track.

Note that the included English SDH subtitles can only be toggled on and off in-film via the remote's subtitle button.

Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin's Disney Movie Club exclusive release contains no supplemental content. The main menu screen offers only options to play the film and select scenes. No DVD or digital copies have been bundled in but it does include a Disney Movie Rewards code. No slipcover is included, either.

Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Disney's Blu-ray disc, exclusive to its online movie club, is disappointingly devoid of supplemental content, but the video quality is nearly perfect and the audio quality practically is perfect. Highly recommended.