I walked into the theater expecting and wanting to like Christopher Robin. Perhaps that was the problem. Maybe I expected too much. It turned out to be something of a disappointment.

The story took far too long to get going, and there was no excuse for that because there wasn’t all that much story to begin with. It boiled down to a retread of the valuable but cliched life lesson about spending less time at work and more time with your family. The first act was dull, and nothing really got interesting until the last 20 minutes or so.

Ewan McGregor didn’t help matters with his wooden portrayal of an adult Christopher Robin. Christopher was boring at work, boring with his family, and stayed boring even after meeting Pooh and company. Things didn’t get interesting until Christopher’s daughter Madeline (Bronte Carmichael) met the animals and set off on an adventure of her own.

Jim Cummings, Nick Mohammed, and Bronte Carmichael in Christopher Robin. IMDb.com.

Pooh and the other inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Wood were somewhat of a bright spot. The CGI was beautifully done. Rather than slick, Pooh and his friends looked like worn, well-loved stuffed animals.

Jim Cummings in Christopher Robin. IMDb.com.

The voice acting – Jim Cummings (Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger), Brad Garrett (Eeyore), Nick Mohammed (Piglet), Peter Capaldi (Rabbit), Sophie Okonedo (Kanga), Sara Sheen (Roo), and Toby Jones (Owl) – was spot on. The voices and mannerisms sounded just like the recordings I remember from when I was a kid. Unfortunately, they were poorly served by the script. The screenwriters (Alex Ross Perry, Tom McCarthy, and Allison Schroeder) seemed determined to cram every Poohism ever uttered into one 104-minute movie, some of them more than once. At times, the loveable bear became downright annoying, and I don’t want to be annoyed with Pooh. Tigger essentially repeated his greatest hits, and Piglet’s character was pruned to the point that timidity became his single, defining trait. Eeyore was a happy exception. While most of the characters were chained to dialogue lifted from the source material, he was allowed to improvise while maintaining his general gloominess, and he had some of the best lines in the film.

Brad Garrett and Nick Mohammed in Christopher Robin. IMDb.com

Christopher Robin could have been so much more. The writers could have played with the idea that Pooh and company were manifestations of Christopher’s stress and conflicting responsibilities and were all in his head. This was even set up when Christopher’s wife Evelyn (Hayley Atwell) warned him that he was going to crack if he kept working so hard. It’s quickly established, though, that the stuffed animals are real, and that everyone can see and hear them. This has some very disturbing implications. First, the Hundred Acre Wood is not a childhood fantasy. It’s a parallel or pocket dimension. Second, Pooh and his friends are living, sentient beings whom Christopher abandoned. It’s shown in the film that the tree that serves as interdimensional portal sits on property that Christopher still owns. Would it have been so hard to drop in on his old friends once in a while? They clearly missed him terribly. It’s actually quite sad, if you think about it.

Brad Garrett, Peter Capaldi, Jim Cummings, Sophie Okonedo, Nick Mohammed, and Sara Sheen in Christopher Robin. IMDb.com

I suppose I was hoping for a film that would be both entertaining and get me “right in the feels” like Paddington 2 earlier this year. In the end, Christopher Robin was a good concept with a lackluster execution.

Overall rating: 5/10