Hop

When a jelly-bean-pooping, clothing-wearing, drum-playing, magical, talking bunny appears on screen, I expect a story that not only has entertainment value, but characters that I just might care about along the way. "Hop" is not that movie.

With a cast like Russell Brand, James Marsden, and Hugh Laurie, it’s hard to imagine the reasoning behind their choice to be a part of this movie. Russell Brand is at a stage now in his career where he can actually choose the movies he wants to be a part of. Hop is his choice? I don’t understand it. The single funniest part in the movie was when Brand walks in as a Production Assistant on a TV talent show and proceeds to speak to his CG character. Aside from that I was laughing for all of the wrong reasons.

James Marsden has been in many movies recently that really show off his versatility as an actor. "Enchanted" is a great example of this. He was able to take a classic Disney-esque character and bring it into live-action and still keep it wild, believable, and fun. He is a great actor and is truly under valued. In Hop, Marsden was somehow able to erase all of those great memories I once enjoyed and replace them with a shallow, weak, phony performance.

The overall premise of the story was just too farfetched and almost nonexistent to grab my attention in any respect. Russell Brand’s character, E.B., is a rebellious bunny who’s dad is the famous Easter Bunny, voiced by Hugh Laurie. The Sr. Easter Bunny will soon be retiring, thus passing on the legacy to E.B. Instead of training for the job he is about to take over, E.B. decides to run away and pursue his dream of becoming a famous rock ’n’ roll drummer. When a random, lazy, unemployed character named Fred O’Hare, played by James Marsden, hits E.B. with his car, Fred takes him in and helps E.B. fulfill his dream. While helping E.B. get better, E.B. tries to come up with a solution to finding a replacement Easter Bunny. Fred randomly says, without any previous explanation, that it has always been his lifelong dream to be the Easter bunny. Earlier in the movie they explain that only a bunny can do the job, and all of a sudden they start to seriously think about letting him be the Easter Bunny.  Things just don’t add up here.

I am definitely not the film’s target audience, but if their target audience is the same age as the audience of Toy Story, Shrek, Lion King, and even Pooh Bear, they should at least try to make a story worth telling. The theater was full of families with kids in many different age groups. Throughout the whole movie, I didn’t hear any laughter beyond that of a small cough. Even from the kids. Besides my friends laughing at the awkward dialogue and random circumstances, there were not any really funny parts to the story.

The only positive attribute about this movie was it’s impressive CG. The interaction between Marsden and E.B. really was stunning. The small chicks were very fluffy and the bunnies fur looked almost photo real. As far as the actual character design went, I wasn’t enthralled. I was mostly annoyed with the stupidity of the chicks. For my girlfriend though, she fell in love with the cute, little bouncing balls of absurdity.

If you can ignore the fact that the plotline is extremely flat, and simply enjoy characters that look good (but sound idiotic) and bounce around the whole time, you might enjoy this movie. If this is not the case, please stay away from this train wreck.  

Final Grade: D