Piglet’s Big Movie

Deep in the Hundred Acre Wood, little Piglet feels unappreciated by his friends Tigger, Eeyore, Rabbit and Winnie-the-Pooh. That’s the basic theme that hammers us incessantly over the head, and the obvious intent is to appeal to toddlers intimidated by bigger kids and ignored by adults. But there’s no story here, just a progression of too-cute adventures told in a complicated flashback structure that probably will bore and confuse the preschool target audience. I haven’t actually seen one of Disney’s Pooh cartoons in years; somewhere along the line, A.A. Milne’s gentle, childlike whimsy has been turned into something heavy-handed, gooey, infantile and rather sickening. There are several bland, maudlin songs by Carly Simon, who appears live over the credits, singing with bizarre abandon.