Anthony's Film Review - Christopher Robin (2018)

Disney presents a new twist on a set of long-beloved characters...

The last time Disney released a movie with Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends, it was a traditionally 2D-animated film in the year 2011. This is a format that Disney has always used to present the lovable bear, ever since his first appearance in the 1966 animated short Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree. But as the 21st century is underway, the studio has moved onto the new trend of making live-action remakes of its animated classics, or live-action originals. That means recreating the cartoon characters as computer-animated characters. Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends would be no exception.

Hence, the 2018 movie Christopher Robin presents Pooh and the gang as CGI anthropomorphic animals, either stuffed or living. But that's not the only new twist to an old favorite. This new film also features an older Christopher Robin. Instead of the innocent boy who has fun adventures with his animal friends in the Hundred Acre Wood, the title character is now a middle-aged man with a wife and daughter plus a stressful job that interferes with his family life. Because life goes on and humans grow up, he has to leave his childhood animal friends behind. So Pooh goes through life as before but without his beloved Christopher Robin. That is, until Pooh finds his friends missing and seeks Christopher Robin's help. (Note: This isn't the first movie to involve a child character growing up and rediscovering his childhood. The 1991 movie Hook centers on a grown-up Peter Pan.)

Let's talk about the title character. Ewan MacGregor plays the character who has undergone a transformation. He works for a luggage company that is seeing decreasing profits and facing the need to dramatically cut costs somehow. Christopher Robin's task is to figure out the best way to cut costs and save the company. But it is no easy matter. Doing so might mean laying off his coworkers. Plus, he has to do this over the weekend, to the disappointment of his wife Evelyn (Hayley Atwell) and daughter Madeline (Bronte Carmichael). In a nutshell, Christopher Robin is a tense and serious man with practically no signs of the child he once was.

It's fascinating to see Christopher Robin in a greater focus than before and in a whole new light. But that doesn't stop anyone from wanting to see the adorable Pooh. The bear, voiced once again by veteran voice actor Jim Cummings, is still the jolly and innocent animal we know and love. The same is true for his friends: the bouncy Tigger, the anxious Piglet, and the sad Eeyore, plus Rabbit, Owl, Kanga, and Roo. It's so nice to see them again, even if it's the first time we see them as CGI creations in a feature-length film. They are also a nice playful contrast to the more serious human drama surrounding Christopher Robin.

Christopher Robin's first encounter with Pooh since his childhood is followed by a scramble to solve all of his problems at once. He takes Pooh from his home in London back to the Hundred Acre Wood to help find the missing animal friends, while still trying to solve his business problem over the weekend before an important corporate meeting. While he doesn't fully escape his work responsibilities, he does have brief moments of rediscovering his childhood. However, he also finds it difficult to be with his wife and daughter, who are staying in a cottage not too far away.

The climax of the movie isn't anything spectacular, but at least it nicely ties things together. This is where Christopher Robin does find a way to solve all of his problems at once. What's nice is how the solution is simple yet creative, and its source isn't one a typical adult would expect. Because it's far from awesome, my rating for this movie isn't near the top. However, I take into account that the target audience can include small children, and on that note, I find this movie to be delightful for the whole family. On a scale of 1 to 10, it's a 7.

Anthony's Rating:

For more information about Christopher Robin, visit the Internet Movie Database.