Christopher Robin (G) ***
Ewan McGregor is endeavouring to take on something different here, and though he’s fun in the jauntier scenes, he doesn’t bring the sense of pathos you need to give this film a real sense of nostalgia or depth.
The fine English actress Hayley Atwell, who plays his wife, on the other hand, is woefully underused. But the colourful bunch of cuddly critters fare much better.
Directed by established filmmaker Marc Forster (Finding Neverland, Monster’s Ball), the boy whose imagination in Hundred Acre Wood helped bring colourful cuddly toys like Tigger, Piglet, Eeyore and of course Pooh Bear to life has kind of lost his way.
The movie opens in Hundred Acre Wood, where Pooh (Jim Cummings, who has voiced the character for decades) and his pals are hosting a goodbye party for Christoper (10) who’s off to boarding school.
It’s fun to see these characters come to life before your eyes thanks to magic of movies and digital animation. Pooh’s silliness and little life philosophies are beguiling, while Tigger and Eeyore make for the liveliest of the supporting characters.
But a montage shows a series of hard knocks and incidents in young Christopher’s life, and by the time we meet him in adulthood, he’s jaded, distant and work-obsessed under a time of pressure at the luggage company where he works. This has caused tension in his marriage to Evelyn (Atwell) while his young daughter feels she hardly knows her father at all.
Can Pooh bring joy and a sense of playfulness back into Christopher’s life? That’s the task at the heart of this movie that holds your attention but never really gives you the sense of emotional depth needed to make this story magical or moving.
The Equalizer 2 (15A) ***
DENZEL WASHINGTON’S badass screen presence saves this standard vigilante thriller from mediocrity.
The movie opens with Washington’s Robert McCall on his latest revenge and justice mission, on a train journey near the Turkish border that ends badly for his targets, a group of men who have kidnapped a young girl.
Again, Denzel uses his trademark stopwatch click to time his attacks, which typically are acted out in less than a minute.
When he’s not beating the living daylights out of nasties, McCall lives a low-key existence in his neighbourhood, helping out the elderly and a youngster, Miles (a very good Ashton Sanders) who is at risk of going down the wrong path. The scenes between these two characters are the best in the film, providing some light relief from the bone-crunching violence.
But when a former source for the CIA is murdered in Brussels, McCall heads there with his former boss (Melissa Leo) and her assistant (Pascal) on a mission with huge implications which places him and those around him at risk.
