Becoming the second in a new series of films twisting childhood stories into thrilling horrors, the film “Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2” was released on March 26. This release furthers the mediocrity of the series, and falls flat among audiences for many reasons.
The movie follows Winnie-the-Pooh and friends as their existence to the public has been revealed by a man by the name of Christopher Robin (Scott Chambers). Their anger with this exposure builds into murderous rage, as they descend onto the town that homes Christopher Robin, leaving a bloody trail behind them.
“Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2” is not as exciting as it seems. Those who saw the first in the series know the disappointment of the acting, sets, plots, costumes, CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery) and more. This movie only continues that disappointment.
The acting was subpar at best. The lines felt forced by the actors, and the killing scenes that are supposed to be filled with suspense and fear were actually quite boring due to the lack of natural expression from the cast. The cast lineup is full of underground and inexperienced actors, so the lack of experience all around explains the underwhelming acting. But that isn’t an excuse for the embarrassment on the screen.
These scenes also didn’t get much help from the sets. The limited budget of the production is glaringly obvious throughout the movie, but with set design it is most clear. The sets looked half put together throughout the entire movie which didn’t help with the viewing experience. The woods with the characters looked beyond fake and didn’t help build that murderous rage that the characters were supposed to gain in those scenes. A slightly bigger budget would have improved this easily, but what’s done is done.
The plot itself didn’t have much to go on. Dialogue felt repetitive at times, and scenes became easily predictable and thus boring to watch. The title of the movie makes it seem like a bloody thriller with unlikely characters but it doesn’t meet that expectation whatsoever.
I really disliked the costuming in this film. Winnie and friends aren’t like themselves at all, and are like humans in masks. This doesn’t help the entire idea of the movie of these real characters being angered that their existence was revealed. I expected them to look at least a bit like their cartoonish selves. They were obviously designed to be scary-looking, but they look like a cheap kids Halloween costume. It was kind of laughable how ugly the costuming was.
Just like the first film, the CGI really sealed the fate of this movie. I didn’t know it could still be executed poorly nowadays with the technology we have, but this movie debunked that idea for me. The blood splatters looked so unrealistic and clearly edited. It looked like production didn’t even try to make this movie in any way enjoyable and realistic.
Overall, I couldn’t dislike a movie any more. I’m a huge fan of thrillers, and I can appreciate a new take on horror films with these “kind” characters turning dark, but this was just a horrible watch. I don’t know how they even produced this film after the disaster of the first movie in the series, but they did almost worse with this second one. I do not recommend you waste an hour and 40 minutes on this film unless you want to be severely disappointed and bored.
“Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2”: ★☆☆☆☆
