1/22/19 - Christopher Robbins (2018) - 3/10

This film is fairly unlikable. It is mostly insufferably dull with an expected exposition matched by characters lacking joy or any kind of viable worth. Pretty substandard and unreasonably uninteresting, really providing little to sink one’s teeth into outside of the first few minutes, which consists of a young Christopher Robbin and his felt friends. But we soon get to a disgustingly long and insanely over informative pseudo credit sequence. That is followed by another hour and a half of ho-hum nothingness and monotonous generic non-drama. I have seen sidewalk sick with more going on than this film.

The best part of this movie: Jim Cummings. He is given little to do, but he nails every line and voice. Unfortunately, there is little after that. McGregor is trying to drag this limping story along, Hayley Atwell is extremely underused, and everyone else is a non-entity. The plot is garbage, the emotion completely lacking, and all the fun sucked out of every crevice. It is an enjoyment void.

This is the most blase and unexciting family film I have seen in a while. It isn’t fun, it isn’t sweet, and “the point” is anemic. The whole thing is supposed to work because of our presupposed nostalgic fondness for Pooh and the integration between CGI and live action. One of those works. The CGI is pretty faultless and well done; probably the most adept portion of the film. Unfortunately, the nostalgic wonder is not enough. The film doesn’t bring anything of note new or captivating. It is a greatest hits CD on repeat, but after the first song all the magic has disappeared. In this case, that was 3 minutes in.