Premise: I didn't grow up reading or watching Winnie the Pooh, so I'm probably not the audience the film-maker had in mind while making this movie, on the other hand I was able to watch it without nostalgia-tinted glasses.
The opening credits scene of Christopher Robin is a masterclass in visual storytelling: the main protagonist's journey from childhood to adulthood unfolds itself before our eyes like chapters from a children's book. Pooh and his friends are entertaining, and sometime their childlike thoughts contain more wisdom than what it seems at first glance. From the first trailer the film looked to me like a British version of the Spielberg movie Hook, a movie I grow up with and that it's very close to my heart, no critic is ever gonna convince me it's not a masterpiece, and unfortunately for the Disney film I kept comparing it to it. The Hundread Acres Wood doesn't look a bit as magical or as lively as Neverland, it doesn't look like a place I would like to escape to or have fun in it. And then there's the major conflict of the movie (SPOILERS ahead): in both Hook and Cristopher Robin the protagonist has to choose between his family and his job, but in Hook Peter Banning's job was represented as a shady M&A deal ("So, Peter, you've become a pirate" says Wendy) and in our hearts and mind there was no doubt that Peter has to choose his family. On the other hand Cristopher Robin's job consists in saving the job of his co-workers from an executive who would like to cut their positions to keep costs down, so when Pooh invites him to play and look for his friends the audience might think in the back of their head that he would be better get to work instead. Final resolution too convenient and capitalistic-consumerism friendly, not something I would like to see in a children's movie.
Review of Christopher Robin
