Disney Movie Challenge Bonus: Christopher Robin (2018)

 Disney Movie Challenge Bonus

Christopher Robin (2018)

Adding to the ever increasing list of live action remakes of animated films Christopher Robin came out in 2018 to mostly positive reviews but never really seemed to make an impact with audiences.  Maybe it was it’s August release date and action movies were dominating the box office, maybe it just seemed like a knockoff of Hook, or people just thought Disney was trying to cash in on the Paddington craze.   Whatever the reason I feel like the movie went under the radar, which is unfortunate.  

In Christopher Robin we have the titular character who after he went to school slowly forgot about Pooh and his friends in Hundred Acre Wood.  We find Christopher as a grown man, married with a daughter. His job is putting a lot of stress on him and he has to miss a vacation away with his family to do business.  But as he is nearing his lowest point Winnie the Pooh suddenly appears and forces him to revisit his childhood.  He returns to Hundred Acre Wood and the cynical side slowly fades away.  But when he leaves to go back to London for work he forgets his papers and Pooh and gang team up with Christopher’s daughter to get the papers back to him before his meeting.  

The Hook comparison is fair.  Both films deal with a character that lived in a fantasy world who grew up and forgot how to have fun.  While I can see this feeling like a retread I think this one stands on its own.  It’s not overly complicated and you can see where it is going from the start. You know Pooh is going to teach Christopher how to recapture his imagination, that family is important, and help him figure out how to save the company he is working for.  But the journey is a satisfying one. It manages to capture the essence of Pooh and what Pooh means to so many people.  It’s charming and funny.  Ewan McGregor as Christopher Robin is spot on.  The guy does not get enough credit for the range he is able to play.  In this film you see him as a downtrodden man who slowly discovers the fun in life again.  Marc Forster who also directed the story of Peter Pan’s author J.M. Barrie in Finding Neverland once again creates a world where fairy tales come to life.  While this movie has more stakes than a typical Pooh movie it still doesn’t get real dark and keeps things light.  Seeing Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, and Eeyore in London creates a lot of opportunities for fun shenanigans, the score does a great job setting the mood, and the CGI looks great.  

Overall: I really enjoyed this movie.  My kid watched most of it with me and he usually hates the live action remakes.  The most surprising thing for me was how funny it really was.  Pooh has some great one liners and watching Ewan McGregor react to them is really a lot of fun.  Again the stakes are low but it’s a great movie for family night when you want something light and fun to watch. 

Random Facts:

Jim Cummings did the voice of Pooh and Tigger he has been doing the voices since the 80’s and is a spot on for the original voice actors from the animated films of the 60’s.  Chris O’Dowd was originally hired for the voice of Tigger but test audiences didn’t like the way his voice sounded so Cummings returned to voice Tigger.  

Some of the Sherman Brothers original songs were used in the film.  Richard Sherman returned to write 3 new songs for the film.  

Jóhann Jóhannsson (one of my favorite composers)  was hired to do the score but died shortly after he was hired.  Would have love to see what he would have done but the new composers did a great job. The movie is dedicated to Jóhannsson.  

Found out that in the original story Owl and Rabbit are the only two real animals in the books and the rest are stuffed animals.  The movie continued that tradition.