directed by Marc Forster
written by Alex Ross Perry, Tom McCarthy, and Allison Schroeder (screenplay), Greg Booker and Mark Steven Johnson (screen story)
As live-action adaptations of beloved Disney animated features goes, this one flew pretty low under my radar, so low, in fact, that until I saw a trailer for it scarcely two months ago, I didn't even know this movie existed. That said, I'm pretty glad I saw it, especially with the family.
As a child, Christopher Robin (Orton O'Brien) is a regular visitor to the Hundred Acre Wood, where he often has whimsical adventures with this friends Winnie the Pooh (Jim Cummings), Piglet (Nick Mohammed), Tigger (also Cummings), Eeyore (Brad Garrett), Owl (Toby Jones), Rabbit (Peter Capaldi), Kanga (Sophie Okonedo) and Roo (Sara Sheen). With them, his favorite pastime is doing a whole lot of nothing. These adventures end when he is shipped off to boarding school and, in the years that follow, spends a whole lot of time doing a whole bunch of "somethings" like getting married, fighting in a war, and landing a job.
Years later, adult Christopher Robin (Ewan McGregor), who now works as the efficiency manager at the Winslow luggage company, faces a serious problem: if he is unable to cut company costs by at least 20%, a lot of people in the company stand to lose their jobs. Working on this means that, yet again, he won't be able to take time off with his family, namely his wife Evelyn (Hayley Atwell) and his daughter Madeline (Bronte Carmichael). Stressed out from the monumental work ahead of him, on top of the work he's already done, Christopher knocks over a jar of honey on his kitchen table, when then spills onto one of his childhood drawings of Winnie the Pooh. He magically ends up summoning Pooh, who (also magically) makes the trip from the Hundred Acre Wood to London and recruits Christopher Robin on a quest to find his missing friends. The real quest, however, is for Christopher Robin to find what's been missing from his life for far too long.
I honestly wouldn't have pegged Winnie the Pooh as a prime candidate for a live-action adaptation, but then, neither would I have done the same for the even less well-known Pete's Dragon, the 1970s animation/live-action hybrid which Disney successfully remade two years ago, but by telling the remake using the old "child-grown-up-into-midlife-crisis" setup that Steven Spielberg employed with the Peter Pan update Hook way back in 1991, the filmmakers found a way to make the story work, if only just.
The writing is extremely uneven; the scriptwriters apparently don't really know how to deal with the concept of a grown Christopher Robin interacting with stuffed animals, so they just play it for laughs, and to be fair it works a few times, but the gimmick does wear thin. Also, the movie quite regrettably fails to cash in on its "period piece" charm thanks to some dialogue that not only feels clunky but also distinctly anachronistic. Also, transplanting these beloved characters into CGI versions for a live action film may have been done with technical proficiency, but to my mind the cartoon's heart didn't quite make the transition.
The saving grace, however, is the live-action performances by McGregor, Atwell, and Carmichael, who, even as they grapple with the aforementioned strange dialogue, still manage to convey the impression of a family in crisis, even as the plot clearly spells it out. McGregor in particular brings a nice middle-aged charm to the role, succeeding where even the late, great Robin Williams failed when he played a middle-aged, burned out Peter Pan. I had worried that McGregor's Hollywood ship had sailed and that he would forever be consigned to little-seen movies or supporting roles in big movies like Beauty and the Beast, but apparently Hollywood's not done with him yet.
Also, with more live-action adaptations of animated classics in the pipelines, like The Lion King and Aladdin, it's clear Disney isn't done riding this particular gravy train.
I found this movie an acceptable distraction, but really, considering rising ticket prices, I do hope Disney tries a bit harder with their future adaptations.
6.5/10
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