A heffalump is a visualization of our innermost nightmares and the tendency we all have to fear what we don’t know.

In “Pooh’s Heffalump Movie,” we meet a heffalump face-to-face and, instead of Pooh-ing our pants with fear, we end up with a new friend and a life lesson in tolerance to boot.

Starring Winnie the Pooh and Co., “Heffalump” opens when Pooh and Tigger (both voiced by Jim Cummings), Rabbit (Ken Sansom), Eeyore (Peter Cullen) and Piglet ( John Fiedler) decide to investigate the mysterious creature disturbing The Hundred Acre Wood, which they aptly blame on heffalumps.

According to Rabbit, a heffalump is a malevolent being, “as wide as a river and tall as a tree,” with “fiery eyes and a tail with a spike.” So like any paranoid people, the group believes they must capture the heffalump.

Meanwhile, Roo (Nikita Hopkins), the littlest of the bunch, thinks a heffalump might be cool and wants to join on the expedition too, only to be kept behind for being too young.

As the bumbling group proceeds on their heffalump hunt the next day, Roo sneaks off on his own adventure. And wouldn’t you know it, he finds a baby heffalump – Lumpy – and the two quickly become friends.

Lumpy is delightful, thanks to the voice of eight-year-old Kyle Stranger. How couldn’t he be? He has a British accent! The moments between Lumpy and Roo are precious, and they are enhanced by Carly Simon on the movie’s soundtrack.

The pink-and-purple Lumpy confides in Roo that he’s afraid of the inhabitants of Roo’s side of Hundred Acre, and Roo quickly realizes the misconceptions the characters may have about one another.

Sure, the movie would have more appropriately been titled, “Roo’s Heffalump Movie,” rather than “Pooh’s,” but what kid will care? Furthermore, what parent will?

The movie is refreshingly innocent. In a world where the tongue-in-cheek adult humor of kids’ movies is sadly comprehensible to a worldlier set of kids, the sanitation of “Heffalump” is welcome. Don’t worry about taking your kid sibling to this one, as long as he or she is under 10 years old.

“Heffalump” is also heartfelt in its message. Accepting those we don’t know is as handy of a reminder for adults as it is for kids. In fact, more adults could use a little open-mindedness, especially when it comes to well-meaning cartoons such as “Winnie the Pooh.”

Cartoons made for children are supposed to be sweet and pure. Any “other” messages we adults may see in them should be left in our “grown-up” heads – metaphors we find may be fun to talk about and fascinating to research, but let’s not spoil it for the kids.

So take that, you crazy SpongeBob hyper-critics. I dare you to go on your heffalump hunt to catch “Heffalump.”