Disney largely threads that needle with "Christopher Robin," a movie that -- once it gets going -- should entertain kids with the antics of Winnie the Pooh and company, while for parents squiring them, spending time with that beloved, silly old bear is no bother at all. For reasons unexplained, Pooh needs Christopher to help him find his friends Piglet, Eeyore, Rabbit, Owl, Tigger, Kanga and Roo. The titular storybook hero (Ewan McGregor), having grown up and survived World War II since leaving the Hundred Acre Wood for boarding school all those many years ago, is now the harried efficiency manager at a London luggage company. His wife, Evelyn (Hayley Atwell), hasn’t seen him laugh in years, and his 9-year-old daughter, Madeline (Bronte Carmichael), is desperately looking forward to a weekend at Christopher’s childhood cottage, where she’ll get to play where he once played before she, too, is shipped off to boarding school. Directed by Marc Forster (“Finding Neverland”) from a script by Alex Ross Perry, “Spotlight” Oscar winner Tom McCarthy and Allison Schroeder (“Hidden Figures”), “Christopher Robin” feels like two drastically different movies grafted onto each other. Even at its most amusing—and there are moments when it is downright hilarious—“Christopher Robin” can’t reconcile its darkness and its light.
– Disney's Christopher Robin sees its adult namesake (Ewan McGregor) reunited with his childhood friend Winnie the Pooh (Jim Cummings) outside the Hundred Acre Wood and just in time, as life in post-World War II London is pretty gloomy. What critics are saying about Marc Forster's latest: "It's a movie every bit as messy as its 'hunny'-craving bear, though only somewhat as lovable," writes Christopher Lawrence at the Las Vegas Review-Journal. As it meshes "a somber, artsy meditation on lost childhoods" with a second half meant to engage kids, "the end result may be discordant … but Christopher Robin still is worth 'oh, bother'-ing to see," he writes. Tom Russo at the Boston Globe calls it "an appealing new spin" on Winnie the Pooh's world. Appearing much like the vintage book illustrations by EH Shepard, "the CG-animated Pooh and friends… steal the show," he writes, noting the script adds "a contemporary flair that's funny without being obtrusive." "Younger kids might grow a bit fidgety" as the film "gets off to a somewhat slow start," writes Brian Lowry at CNN. Once it gets going, though, it offers "a genuine sweetness" and serves as "a reminder of the simple pleasures of hanging out with family and a talking bear, which, in these frenetic times, is the kind of silliness that's worth savoring." But Odie Henderson could've done without "another movie built on the pseudo-psychological cliché that adults need to reconnect with their childhoods in order to be better adults," especially one led by the Hundred Acre Wood's "least memorable character." "It feels as if reality has invaded the Hundred Acre Wood and sullied it," he writes at RogerEbert.com, giving the film two stars.