Hop (2011)

Christmas decorations are everywhere (but my house) and what did I do? I watched Hop, an Easter movie. In my defence, that bunny is so cute and so is James Marsden, and that was exactly what I needed. Those two are pretty much the only cute things about the film.

E.B. (Russell Brand) is the teenage son of the Easter Bunny (Hugh Laurie). He doesn't want to be an Easter bunny so he runs away, heading to Hollywood, where he hopes to become a drummer in a band. There he meets Fred (James Marsden), an out-of-work slacker who accidentally hits E.B. with his car and takes him in as he recovers. Together they will learn what it takes to grow up.

Well, now that I think about it, Hop isn't much of an Easter movie. It's more of a movie with some Easter-related characters. Anyway, it's a quite silly story that fails to engage and only lead me to the kingdom of boredom. In addition to the storyline above, there are several pointless subplots, one having a group of bunnies wandering around L.A. looking for E.B., the other set on the Easter Island where a chick named Carlos (Hank Azaria) plots to become the new Easter bunny. Or should I say Easter chick? One thing these plots have in common, they all are boring and engaging. 

Universal Pictures

The characters are pretty bland too and quite annoying, to be honest. Same goes for the main character, E.B. The characterization is poor, the development is even worse, and I just couldn't care less for them. Also, I didn't get why that poor bunny had to change identity like every 5 minutes. He was a stuffed toy, then a ventriloquist's dummy, and when everybody knows he's a talking rabbit, no one, absolutely no one thinks that's weird. James Marsden's character seems the only one to be having a problem with it, only at the beginning though. Once he realises the talking rabbit is real and that he hasn't gone crazy, he's okay with it.

Hop is supposed to be a comedy, but it's rarely funny. I think I laughed once or twice during the movie and that's because the humour is terrible. The jokes fall flat and so do the gags. Also, if you have seen the trailer, you already saw the only "fanny" parts. 

There's something good in this film too. The animation is very well done. It's appealing and the animated characters are very cute. And James Marsden does his best; he is, in fact, the one delivering that little comedy in this film. But he couldn't save something that just couldn't be saved.