Thursday, September 27, 2018

Film Review - Christopher Robin (2018)

Christopher Robin is the newest Disney attempt at doing the Winnie the Pooh story but this time Ewan McGregor plays a grown up Christopher Robin who has long left the 100 acre wood behind and has a wife Evelyn (Hayley Atwell) and a daughter Madeleine as well as a job at Wombley Luggage which is having to make some hard cuts in order to survive which means staying behind while his family head away on holiday but when Pooh (Jim Cummings) comes to Christopher to find all of his friends the woods come calling again.

Christopher Robin sadly was very forgettable for me and that doesn’t make it a bad movie but one that didn’t really do very much to keep me interested as it was being projected in front of me but first off it is wonderful to hear Jim Cummings as Pooh’s voice as he brings so much heart and warmth and depth to that character that every time he opened his mouth to talk I was really enjoying his dialogue.

And also a lot of the other voices like Brad Garrett as Eeyore and Peter Calpaldi as Rabbit are great likenesses for the original voices from the Winnie the Pooh animated series where Peter Cullen voiced Eeyore for example and Chris O’Dowd who voices Tigger also really captures Jim Cummings’s Tigger voice very well.

As for the human performers Mr McGregor is good as the older Christopher Robin and Ms Atwell who was wonderful as Peggy in the Captain America films pretty much plays the concerned wife and mother role and she does a good job with it but part of me was wishing she was given something more to do and hopefully in the future she will get a great part to really sink her teeth into.

But alas this story just felt very forgettable for me and it plays out very much in that “What if Christopher Robin grew up” kind of way that I didn’t really find all that interesting I mean if your going to do a live action Winnie the Pooh movie it needs to be colourful and bright and fun to watch for a family audience here the adults might get something out of but younger children which should be an ideal audience for this film will just sit there bored by it all when Pooh and his friends aren’t on screen.

And so that was Christopher Robin a forgettable film for me I’m afraid despite some good performances, 1.5 out of 5.

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