"Christopher Robin" is a Generic Film With Medicore Directing

By: Keaton Marcus

Genre/Kids/Family

Age Rating/7+

Lemonradar/50% sour

So What’s The Story?

Hi, this is Keaton Marcus from Sweet and Sour Movie Reviews and today I will be reviewing Disney’s latest installment, Christopher Robin. When a creative boy named Christopher (Ewan McGregor) leaves his talking stuffy friends later becoming a dull businessman, Pooh his best friend finds him in London to go on a mission to get back together to find their pals and most importantly win back his family’s hearts after leaving them to go on vacation alone, for his work.

How Was The Cast?

After a couple years break from film acting we see Ewan McGregor’s rare performance in kids films as the quite famous character of Christopher Robin and after McGregor’s own problems as a husband it is quite unusual to see the actor in such a film that has a main theme in family. More of the cast includes Hayley Atwell as Evelyn and Jim Cummings as Winnie the Pooh. As I said we saw actor Ewan Mcgregor known for the Star Wars franchise, Beauty and the Beast, Trainspotting, Big Fish etc. as the almost overtold character of Christopher Robin. Like I said before with the leaving of his wife as a real life husband we would never really expect McGregor to act in another film that has the family theme to it, but surprisingly using all of his previous talented performances, the actor playfully tends to a solid script and the new creative element of going deep into character development of Robin overall delivering very acceptable results and although it might not be as convincing as his other performances, the actor creates a watchable returning performance as the immensely famous character. Secondly we saw British actress Hayley Atwell known for the Marvel Universe, The Duchess, Cinderella etc. as Christopher Robin’s wife Evelyn. Mostly known for painfully small parts in solid movies, Atwell is not a bad actress overall but I never really feel like the actress knows what she is actually doing. In Christopher Robin, Atwell features her worst performance of her career with a robot-like-written part, stiff acting and really just adds no magic to the film really making most viewers focus on better performances within the talented cast. Lastly we have famous voice-actor Jim Cummings known for The Lion King, Pocahontas, the Winnie the Pooh collection, Tarzan etc. as CGI’d critter Winnie the Pooh. With an entire career of animated characters there is no going wrong with Cummings, and although he has had better performances in other carnations, the actor leverages on kiddy slapstick, a damn right laugh-out-loud script and overall just as a character is so well set-up and written that his performance mostly overcomes the movie’s clear flaws even though Cummings delivery is somewhat lacking to differentiate from previous carnations of the character.

Is It Worth Your While?

Directing this joint is extremely accomplished director Mark Forster known for Monster’s Ball, Finding Neverland, World War Z and Casino Royale who clearly just wanted to make some more cash with this feature film. Lacking in story, plot, entertainment to older audiences and the conviction of his other movies Forster also clearly suffers from too many characters on screen and a confusingly rushed running time, and although a mostly solid cast provides some cover up, Christopher Robin’s directing mostly feels like another average kids film. And compared to his other (better) debuts this family flick is pale even though it happens to be better than most Disney-live action movies. Special effects wise, Disney has settled down quite a lot after the eruption of Marvel movies going from Infinity War’s 300M budget to the 75M budget of Christopher Robin which is mostly used on creative set pieces, a decent cast and really concentrated visuals at least giving the movie a magical feel to it despite the lack of brains; Really overall the CGI’d critters of this flick are more impressively animated and voiced than the Alvin and the Chipmunks franchise, Marmaduke and G-Force. Storytelling and plot wise, Christopher Robin could have been one of the cleverest, most brilliant films of the year, but settles for a simple, routine kids film and with the talents behind this mess it is almost unforgivable to watch another short, clumsy shabby retelling of a truly classic story and while McGregor and Cummings shine nothing can really save the film from a forced mildly entertaining, somewhat cute mediocre adaption for Disney.

Aging ‘Winnie the Pooh’

Much darker and more mature than other Disney kids adaptations, Christopher Robin’s violence includes a car crash, imaginings of a creepy creature, Christopher’s father dies early in the movie, there is a brief sequence of war violence including explosions and in very few scenes there is intense music and cinematography that might scare off younger kids. Language wise there is creative rude humor used such as Pooh saying he is a bear of very little brain, Christopher calls Winslow a type of monster known as a Woozle and other variations of ‘lost his marbles’, stupid and such. Sexuality wise there is really nothing to worry about with the exception of embraces, kissing and dancing in a few scenes.

 Christopher Robin stories live-action V animated

 

Christopher Robin 50% sour

Violence: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

Language: ⭐☆☆☆☆

Sex: ⭐☆☆☆☆

Age Rating: 7+

Winnie the Pooh (2011) 82% sweet

Violence: ⭐⭐☆☆☆

Language: ⭐☆☆☆☆

Sex: ☆☆☆☆☆

Age Rating: 4+

Christopher Robin 50% sour

Storyline: ⭐⭐☆☆☆

Cast: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

Role Models: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

Winnie the Pooh 82% sweet

Storyline: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

Cast: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

Role Models: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

News Related to Christopher Robin

 

$plurge, $tream, $kip: Christopher Robin has a solid cast and is cute for young viewers, but the film lacks direction, plot and story making it another overly-familiar family movie…$KIP IT