We all know that Easter is focused around two fictional
characters, Jesus Christ and, the far more likely to exist, Easter Bunny. Well,
I spent Good Friday watching a film about the latter with my girls. Hop stars
the vocal talents of Brit actors Hugh Laurie and Russell Brand as cartoon
rabbits in this half animated, half live action family comedy. The rest of the
cast is made up of B-listers with James Marsden landing the lead. Now, I went
into this thinking that Marsden wasn’t able to carry a film and was lacking in
star quality and Hop proved my point.
That said, Hop was enjoyable and garnered more laughs than Alvin
and the Chipmunks and, perhaps more surprisingly, The Pirates. It’s silly and
it’s aimed largely at children and they responded to it, my girls are still
mimicking scenes from it today and are quoting lines from it too, that didn’t
happen with Happy Feet 2 or Puss in Boots.
The story goes like this, E.B. (Brand) is a young rabbit and
son of the Easter Bunny (Laurie). When it comes to E.B.’s turn to take over the
Easter traditions from his Father he decides that he’s not ready and runs off
to pursue his dream of being a drummer. Marsden plays Fred O’Hare, a no-hoper
that’s somewhat unemployable, and encounters E.B. after he’s made his escape.
Marsden can’t quite believe that he’s found a talking rabbit and one that
continually gets him in to trouble. So, it’s pretty simple really, he wants
shot of the rabbit but together they go on a journey of discovery.
The supporting cast all pull their weight and do a nice job
with Ken Daurio, Brian Lynch and Cinco Paul’s script. Tim Hill, who was a writer
on the excellent 90s cartoon Rocko’s Modern Life and is slated to take charge
of the Short Circuit remake, directs Hank Azaria, Gary Cole, Elizabeth Perkins
and Kaley Cuoco amongst others, in what is a simple but amusing tale. You could
do far worse than tracking down a copy of this if you have young children (my
girls are seven and nine), if you don’t have children though don’t bother
because that would just be weird.
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