Christopher Robin – Film Review

Christopher Robin is a film mainly about learning to balance your life out with not only making time for the ones you love, but being responsible to your professional life within reason. Life can move by quickly and sometimes people lose sense of themselves. Finding your inner child is the true meaning of the film. The characters of “Winnie the Pooh” are extremely well realized. The film does have its issues in the beginning with the opening credits feeling overly long. I felt that they were rushing through a lot of backstory to get to the main plot. This is definitely not your average family film. This is truly an adult kids film.

The character designs for Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet, Tigger, Kanga, Roo, Rabbit, and Owl are very real. The CGI on the stuff animal creatures was better and more lifelike than the characters they chose to make real. Looking back I don’t mind that Rabbit and Owl looked like real animals, you could just tell they were CGI easier. Ewan McGregor does a fantastic job in the role of Christopher Robin. Him and Hayley Atwell are great as an acting duo and a married couple. The actress who played the daughter was also very charming.

People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.

The movie picks up speed once Pooh shows up in London. I would agree that the color palette seemed a little too desaturated, but it felt more classic in my opinion. I would have liked a bit more vibrancy throughout the picture but it didn’t detract too much. Jim Cummings wonderful voice work for Pooh made everything feel nostalgic. With nostalgia so big, the film achieves that with recreating pages from the illustrations and utilizing its roots not only in the opening credits — but with the Disney logo at the beginning as well.

When something feels authentic it just feels right. This film does achieve that by Marc Forresters direction. It just needed a stronger opening to land that overall tone. I do equate this film to being similar to “Pete’s Dragon” in that it is a smaller film with some grander elements to reflect on childhood. I would say this is a definitely recommend as a pleasant time at the movies. Children might get bored with the beginning by it picks up after a bit.

8/10