IF

The premise is its problem. Because this script focuses so strongly on suspension of disbelief, such as comes naturally to a child, it gets lost in that focus and expects a child’s reaction from everyone in the audience—even the adults who are watching with a substantially more critical eye. That primal flaw spawns others, including a weak storyline that renders much of the movie a pastiche of loosely related scenes that have more cutesy to them than anything else. You get the sense that the filmmakers expect the viewer to look at the imaginary characters (such as Steve Carrel's Blue) and think, “He’s delightful,” when in reality the reaction is more like, “He’s annoying.” Meanwhile, the main plot point is so telegraphed that when the crisis arrives, you’ve already seen it coming a mile away—and then the story chickens out and doesn’t follow through to the logical—but probably too upsetting for the target audience—conclusion. And the twist at the end is predictable, too—otherwise, you wouldn’t have spent most of the running time wondering just what was the deal with that character anyway. (That twist is also a gigantic violation of the story’s own rules, which indicates a lack of attention to detail.) Really, much of these proceedings feel like cheap setups to produce cheap, unearned sentiment. Perhaps all that’s just my cynicism talking. For sure, John Krasinski has made better and more interesting films in the past, and he has built a reserve of goodwill from previous works, so I don’t want to be too harsh; it would be churlish to direct a hiss towards what is essentially a children’s movie (though one I’m not sure a lot of kids would actually enjoy it, even with its bevy of CGI characters). I’ll leave this one in MEOW territory, and let myself imagine that it deserves that such credit.