Movie Review: Christopher Robin

Christopher Robin *** / *****

Directed by: Marc Forster.

Written by: Alex Ross Perry and Allison Schroeder based on characters created by A.A. Milne and E.H. Shepard.

Starring: Ewan McGregor (Christopher Robin), Hayley Atwell (Evelyn), Bronte Carmichael (Madeline Robin), Jim Cummings (Winnie the Pooh / Tigger), Toby Jones (Owl), Peter Capaldi (Rabbit), Brad Garrett (Eeyore), Sophie Okonedo (Kanga), Nick Mohammed (Piglet), Wyatt Dean Hall (Roo), Mark Gatiss (Keith Winslow), Oliver Ford Davies (Old Man Winslow), Orton O'Brien (Young Christopher Robin).

 

Disney hasn’t really known what to do with Winnie the Pooh in recent years – an old childhood favorite property, with beloved characters that feels like it is out of another time and place, because of course, it is. Pooh and his friends live in an innocent world of childhood wonder and imagination, and they don’t much fit in with the frantic energy of today’s popular cartoons for children – even if when children do encounter these characters, they love them just as much as always (it’s a reminder that children don’t change, as much as the stuff adults think children like change). So it makes sense that in order to revive the franchise a little, they would make the nostalgic Christopher Robin – a film about an adult rediscovering his love for his childhood friends, because after all, Disney needs to bring in adults to a move like this, along with their children, in order to make money. That’s cynical, of course, but it’s also the truth – nostalgia is big right now with reboots of every piece of garbage culture we consumed as children making a comeback. At least in the case of Winnie the Pooh, the culture wasn’t – and isn’t - garbage.

 

After a brief interlude of Christopher Robin as a child, we see a montage as he grows up into Ewan McGregor, is sent to boarding school, goes off to war (we didn’t need a war scene with explosions in this film Disney), marries Evelyn (Hayley Atwell), and has a daughter of his own, Madeline (Bronte Carmichael), and gets a job at a boring luggage company. He hasn’t thought of Pooh and his old friends in years – because it appears like he hasn’t thought of anything except luggage in years – which is why his daughter barely knows him, and his marriage is on the rocks. Also on the rocks is the luggage company, and Christopher is told he has to work through the weekend to cut costs by 20%. This means yet another broken promise to his family – he was supposed to take them to the cottage for the weekend, but now they go alone.

 

Pooh and friends are still in the Hundred Acre Wood though – but one day, Pooh wakes up and everyone else is gone. Not knowing what else to do, he walks through the door Christopher Robin is known to come out of, and ends up in London – face-to-face with Christopher Robin. He has no time for Pooh, of course, but cannot get rid of him that easily. It will require a trip to the very same cottage his family is at – and a trip through the door himself, to meet all his old friends.

 

The film essentially tries to do the same thing that Steven Spielberg attempted with Hook – put the adult version of child character back in the fantasy world in order to learn something about being an adult. If Spielberg couldn’t really pull off the trick with Hook, you can guess how Marc Forster (Finding Neverland) fares. It’s not that Christopher Robin is a bad film – it isn’t. For the most part, its fun and charming – and the childhood characters are every bit as charming as you remember, especially for people like me who have been nicknamed Eeyore for years, and so it’s with delight I report that our beloved donkey gets all the best lines. McGregor is quite good in the film – he interacts with the CGI creations convincingly, and his transformation from stick in the mud to fun loving is convincing. Even better is Bronte Carmichael, as his delightful daughter Madeline. I wanted her to interact with the characters more – children are better at interacting with talking stuffed animals – but when she does, she is quite good. Poor Hayley Atwell is way overqualified for her role – but I guess she does it as good as it can be.

 

Throughout the film though, I couldn’t help but wonder if we really needed a film about how a grown man has to embrace the things he loved when he was younger to be a better adult. If anything, in our culture has the opposite problem – people need to let go of what they loved in the past, or at the very least, let go of their ideas of it, and let it breath and become something new (looking you The Last Jedi haters). The film feels like a celebration of overgrown man children that I had trouble embracing.

 

Still, though, for what the film is, it is quite good – and its good for children, if for no other reason than perhaps they can fall in love with these characters as well, and visit their older, better adventures. Especially Eeyore.

Movie Review: World War Z

World War Z
Directed by: Marc Forster.
Written by: Matthew Michael Carnahan and Drew Goddard & Damon Lindelof  and J. Michael Straczynski based on the novel by Max Brooks.
Starring: Brad Pitt (Gerry Lane), Mireille Enos (Karin Lane), Daniella Kertesz (Segen), James Badge Dale (Captain Speke), Ludi Boeken (Jurgen Warmbrunn), Matthew Fox (Parajumper), Fana Mokoena (Thierry Umutoni), David Morse (Ex-CIA Agent), Elyes Gabel (Andrew Fassbach), Peter Capaldi (W.H.O. Doctor), Pierfrancesco Favino (W.H.O. Doctor), Ruth Negga (W.H.O. Doctor), Moritz Bleibtreu (W.H.O. Doctor), Sterling Jerins (Constance Lane), Abigail Hargrove (Rachel Lane), Fabrizio Zacharee Guido (Tomas), David Andrews (Naval Commander).

The zombie genre hasn’t really changed much since George A. Romero pretty much invented it with 1968’s Night of the Living Dead. Romero is still the undisputed master – making 6 films in his “dead” series in the 45 years since the first (he always said he wanted to make 10 – I doubt he’ll make it). The one thing almost every zombie movie – whether it shows the outbreak or is about the aftermath – is that it is about a confined group of people, in one location. The outside world may or may not be falling down like they are – they just don’t know (I supposed 28 Weeks Later is an exception). The biggest debate in zombie movie circles ever happened with the release of 28 Days Later and the remake of Dawn of the Dead – should zombies run?

On that level, you can at least say World War Z offers something slightly new to the zombie genre. Although, unlike the book the film is based on, the movie concentrates on one person, it does offer a global perspective on a zombie outbreak. Max Brooks book had more on its mind than zombies – and was really about politics, and how countries around the world would react to an outbreak of this kind. As far as zombie fiction goes, it actually took the questions relatively seriously.

The movie doesn’t follow the book exactly – that would have made it episodic, and since Brad Pitt was on board, he needs to be at the center of it. So instead of showing us the outbreak piece by piece, country by country with a revolving door of characters, the film concentrates on Pitt’s Gerry Lane – a former UN Investigator called back into service to hope around the globe and try and find where the zombie outbreak started. If they knew where it started, they may know how to stop it. He doesn’t want to do this, but if he doesn’t he and his family – wife Karin (Mireille Enos) and two daughters will be thrown off the relative safety of the Navy ship they’ve be taken in on. He doesn’t really have a choice.

I said earlier that this kind of globetrotting action epic is new to the zombie genre – and I really do believe that – that doesn’t mean that World War Z is exactly original. To be, this almost felt like the type of disaster movie that Roland Emmerich usually makes – although one that is done much better than most of his films. The film is more of a thriller and action movie than a horror film – I wasn’t really scared at any point during the film (although my wife was, but she’s scared of everything in movies). That doesn’t mean the movie isn’t intense – because there are great moments of tension – or exciting – as the film has a couple of great action sequences (the one in Israel is particularly well handled).

And I did like the zombies in this film. I have always been more of a “slow zombie” guy than one of the new breed of running zombies. The zombies win not because of their speed or strength or smarts, but simply because there are too many of them, and they overwhelm you. In World War Z, the zombies are running – and it works really well. Director Marc Forster has said he was inspired by insects with these zombies, and you can easily see that when the zombies swarm their prey, or even when they’re by themselves – trapped in a corner like a fly trying to get out a closed window.

Pitt anchors the movie with his good guy routine – which he does well. While I always like Pitt more when he takes chances – and few movie stars of his caliber have taken as many over the last decade – it’s easy to forget just how good he can be when he’s in full movie star mode as he is here. It’s not going to get him an Oscar or anything, but a movie like this needs a good guy at it’s core – someone for the audience to root for – and Pitt more than fits the bill.

World War Z is well made, mainstream entertainment. I had fun watching the film for two hours, and if the hinted at sequel materializes I see it. The film took some chances and mixed genres effectively. And while the movie doesn’t skimp on action, it also doesn’t beat you into submission with it like many of the action movies so far this summer. It may not be a great film, but it’s an effective one.