Christopher Robin
Cert: PG / 104 mins / Dir. Marc Forster / Trailer
Well I for one wouldn't have put money on a cinematic highlight of 2018 being Ewan McGregor's chemistry with a CGI bear. In fact, it's a damned shame that this (repeated) display is the best thing about Disney's Christopher Robin. As a demo-reel for what a great physical and emotional actor Ewan can be, this movie is worth every penny of the ticket.
But it's… well, it's Disney. We know what to expect from the sentimental live-action fare they present, yet it still stings a little when it's not as perfect as their animation. Don't get me wrong, Christopher Robin is a solid movie, but it's one you've seen elsewhere - and not just in Winnie The Pooh stories. Great care is taken to gently lay All The Hits into the script in terms of callbacks and catchphrases, and there are some solid gold moments in here. But it feels like a large idea written in small words, while Jon Brion and Geoff Zanelli's score tells the audience what they should be feeling at any given moment.
Never quite patronising but certainly simplistic, all the emotional buttons are pushed in a way which suggests a safe-play from the studio. Some great deadpan comedy performances get slightly lost in a script which uses twee slapstick as its default setting. I'm not entirely sure that director Marc Forster is the best candidate for the job (despite his excellent work with McGregor, as noted), having previously delivered the lacklustre World War Z and the oft-derided Quantum Of Solace. Moving around the genres is perfectly permissible, but mastering one along the way is preferable.
Christopher Robin's story itself is based on a solid enough premise of nostalgia, family values and paternal redemption, but it's a formula which Disney have already done to perfection with their first Mary Poppins outing. December hares toward us with considerable expectation, to put it mildly.
The film all but abandons its core-message after the first act, racing for the finish line and becoming that movie where the businessman tells his snide boss to stick it up his backside while making an inspirational speech with his daughter at the back of the room that results in a gradual-applause response. Basically, a Jim Carrey film in the late 1990s.
Christopher Robin is good, but despite its high-points you know it should be better.
On the plus side, the recurring motif of the red balloon was very reminiscent of IT, and during the dreamlike underwater-sequence I did expect Ewan to pick up then discard two opium suppositories. Damn that PG certificate.
It feels like a property with the cultural legacy of Winnie The Pooh perhaps deserves more, but that comes down to Disney's stewardship of the brand more than anything else, which is by no means a new issue.
At some point in its development, Christopher Robin was a fantastic movie. But this feels like Disney are lazily trying to ape the success of Paddington, and for that they'll need a little less schmaltz and lot more sincerity…
Well, Paddington, frankly.
Not that it really should be.
Wet Sunday afternoon, sure.
When it comes down to a sensible price it'll be a one to have on the shelf.
Well, McGregor should certainly be proud.
That's possible.
There isn't.
Level 1: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Commander D'Acy, Sio Bibble and Farns Monsbee are in this.
Sersiously, actors. Get onto Disney's books. You will not be idle.
Yes, even though I've done little but complain about it.
It's because I care, honest.
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• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
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