Verdict: A sweet small-fry diversion.

By CHRISTY LEMIRE
The Associated Press

"Piglet's Big Movie" is so sweet, so earnest, so utterly guileless, it's hard not to be charmed.

And the 75-minute running time makes it the perfect first movie for very young children. The tykes at a recent Saturday morning screening barely shifted or stirred, they were so enraptured.

For slightly older kids -- as in 6 years old, max -- there are positive messages about teamwork and friendship and appreciating the people who are important to you.

Seeing A.A. Milne's familiar Winnie the Pooh characters brought to life through hand-drawn animation (by Walt Disney Animation Japan) and voiced by the same actors we've heard for years, is so quaint, it's downright comforting.

This is only the second original Pooh feature created for the screen -- 2000's "The Tigger Movie" came first -- but it reunites many longtime players from the franchise's animated shorts and videos.

Piglet (voiced by John Fiedler for the past 35 years) wants desperately to be a part of his buddies' activities in the Hundred Acre Wood. But when Pooh and Tigger (both voiced by Jim Cummings), Rabbit (Ken Sansom) and Eeyore (Peter Cullen) concoct an elaborate scheme for harvesting honey, they leave Piglet out because they think he's too small to help.

Tigger promises he can participate "when you're a bit bigger of a Piglet."

But Piglet's pals are so caught up in themselves, they don't realize that they acquired the honey only because the petite porky guy was in the right place at the right time. They also don't realize at first that Piglet ends up lost when a big storm comes.

But then Pooh and his pals use their unique brand of literal logic to determine that they can use Piglet's book of memories to find him, because the book will remember where he is.

Thus we have the film's structure: a series of flashbacks to previous adventures in which Piglet always manages to save the day, from building a house for Eeyore to introducing the gang to their new neighbors, mama Kanga (Kath Soucie) and her bouncy young son, Roo (Nikita Hopkins).

"He seems to be the hero of every story," Pooh realizes with resignation.

It's all well and good, except for the soundtrack of original songs from Carly Simon. They're merely tolerable while accompanying the animated adventures in the Hundred Acre Wood. But then we're forced to look at live-action Carly, dressed in head-to-toe prairie garb and playing an acoustic guitar, as she reprises one of the songs during the closing credits.

Don't hog the screen time, Carly. This is Piglet's movie.